BREAKING NEWS: Design

Modern-Day Autoprogettazione: The Delta Lamp

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 19:30:05 +0000

Enzo Mari introduced his Autoprogettazione movement back in 1974, encouraging DIY furniture making. Today, five decades later, German company 1x1 Systems continues the movement with a digital twist, providing 3D print files for objects you can assemble and complete yourself.

This Delta Lamp, by German industrial designer Christoph Hauf, is one of 1x1's offerings. It's a series of customizable connectors and a lampshade. Joined with a standard light bulb socket and a dowel, it becomes a wall lamp. The user-determined length of the dowel determines the standoff distance from the wall.

"Delta is a material-efficient wall lamp based around a simple wooden stick that can be easily upcycled from old broomsticks or discarded furniture. The design is highly adjustable both in height and angle while always staying in place thanks to the constant tension of the cable."

"The lower wall mount consists of two parts through which the cable runs, allowing the lamp to swing across the room while staying perfectly aligned. The double-walled lampshade is also 3D-printed and includes a thread to fit E14 light sockets."

"This is our most complex parametric design to date; both cable guides and lampshade adjust to match any width of the used stick as well as the total dimensions of the lamp."

"Delta Lamp costs €30 and includes custom print files based on your configuration, as well as a custom manual. It is available via 1x1.systems and can be previewed in AR via your phone."

This Weatherboard Hides A Beautiful Barn-Like Extension

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 19:00:32 +0000

This Weatherboard Hides A Beautiful Barn-Like Extension

Architecture

by Christina Karras

Sliding doors open the new extension to a timber deck.

The barn-style ceiling is lined in timber. Dining table designed by Laura McCusker.

No plasterboard was used in the new areas, instead embracing the structure’s brick texture.

A wood heater was one of the client’s must-have features.

Raised steps and a linkway demarcates the old from the new extension at the rear.

The kitchen makes the most of the soaring ceiling height with floor-to-ceiling joinery.

Two of the bedrooms at the front of the home were combined to create a large main bedroom with custom wardrobes designed by Laura McCusker.

Prints by Kara Rosenlund.

Terrazzo floors and skylights characterise the linkway, with the laundry on one end and the powder room on the other.

Soft grey tiles feature in the bathroom.

The clients have transformed the backyard by growing most of the plants from seedlings.

Sliding doors embrace the home’s north-facing backyard.

The Victorian facade.

The street fence changes in style from traditional Windsor pickets to a tall square cut paling as it progresses towards the new addition — matching the angle of the elevated roofline.

Strictly no plasterboard was used in the extension of this Collingwood family home.

‘The approach was to keep materials honest and pared back, allowing their natural qualities to take centre stage,’ SAY Architecture director and architect Eleanor Eade says of the recently completed ‘Ghost Gum House’.

The owners had moved from Tasmania to the inner city cottage, which consisted of a ‘beautiful, although dilapidated’ Victorian facade with veranda and four principal front rooms.

However, the rear of the property had multiple ad-hoc additions: ranging from weird windows to random downpipes and plumbing solutions, and so much external concrete paving that only two square metres of the garden was permeable.

‘It was a concrete jungle,’ Eleanor says. ‘Coming from Tasmania, the couple had an inherent love of nature and landscape and a keen knack for plants.’

As a result, their brief was focused on ‘not building more than they needed’ to prioritise landscaping and backyard space.

Respecting the original dwelling was also paramount. They sought to renovate the non-original elements at the rear with a new addition that would sit neatly alongside the heritage frontage — enhancing rather than overpowering.

SAY Architecture devised a design that would maximise space on the urban corner block: an open and airy barn-like extension with a deck.

‘The barn is a wonderful form. It works particularly well for small sites,’ Eleanor says.

‘It expresses the strong residential character and street presence we were looking for. Simple and clean. It is a complimentary opposite to the heritage character of existing dwelling.’

The pitched roof provided a large internal volume that now houses the open plan living, kitchen, and dining area.

Meanwhile, the use of textural materials like brick and timber brings a warm, mid-century feel to the interiors, emphasised by other must-have features like a wood heater and a large barn door that slides to conceal the main living space.

After moving through the original hallway and bedrooms, a linkway lined in terrazzo flooring with skylights overhead ‘offers a moment of pause’, leading to the laundry and powder room.

‘As you draw through the home the floor level is raised and ceiling lowered as you transition to the new addition, forming a threshold between old and new,’ Eleanor says.

Not only was the barn structure successful in decreasing the home’s footprint without sacrificing amenity, but it helped connect the hub of the home to the north-facing gardens with large bi-folding doors.

Rather than simply blending the existing Victorian with a contemporary extension, the resulting house offers a ‘dialogue’ between the home’s contrasting materials — weatherboard and plaster, to brick and timber — and in form — heritage eaves, and a hip and valley roof.

And thanks to all the owners’ impressive work on the gardens, this neat family home feels like a little oasis, right in the heart of the city.

New "Nonlinear: Navigating Design with Curiosity and Conviction" Book

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 16:36:56 +0000

Industrial designer and innovation leader Kevin Bethune, the founder and Chief Creative Office of design think-tank dreams • design + life, has written a new book. His first, "Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation," explored the strategic values of design beyond aesthetics. The follow-up, "Nonlinear: Navigating Design with Curiosity and Conviction," challenges linear approaches to design, arguing that the complexities of today's world demand new levels of openness and adaptability.

"In Nonlinear, Kevin Bethune shows us that we can reject trodden paths of digital or physical product creation by taking advantage of a nonlinear approach. To unlock meaningful innovation that breeds new and novel outcomes, he writes, teams need to embark on a journey into the proverbial forest of ambiguity, the result of a rapidly converging, dynamic, and exponentially changing landscape. The journey is less about getting it right or wrong, and more about using the information we have at our disposal to understand our choices and take steps to unlock new learning."

"Nonlinear begins by taking the reader through Bethune's professional 'zigs and zags.' The author explains that while his interdisciplinary leaps were rare at the time he took them, these varied experiences unlocked perspectives about design and innovation that uniquely prepared him for our present moment and for the future. He then showcases the role of quantitative information to strategically frame and set boundary conditions for our creative exploration, and the role of qualitative insights to provide the substance necessary to begin crafting solutions that address unmet needs."

"The book also identifies accelerants (or flywheels) that will help readers as they reflect on their journey navigating the forest of ambiguity, with a specific emphasis on diversity, a key theme for Bethune, a Black man who has navigated new horizons. Readers will enjoy having the chance to customize the author's perspectives and make them their own at both an individual and team level."

The book is available here, and Design Better is hosting an AMA with Bethune on March 11th. You can sign up here.

Chery's Wild Living-Room-on-Wheels Vehicle Concept

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 15:32:46 +0000

Chinese auto manufacturer Chery is teasing this concept vehicle, which is either called the Fulwin Jinyun SMPV or the Journeo; the messaging is unclear, as there's been no official press release from the company.

It was reportedly designed at the company's Advanced Design Centre in Raunheim, Germany. From what we can see, it's a four-person vehicle that appears primarily designed for lounging.

The front fascia becomes a flip-out loveseat:

The dashboard retracts, the front seats swivel, and the center console travels rearwards on a track, rotating 90 degress to become a sort of coffee table:

The rear seatbacks also rotate, creating a sort of rear lounge space, while the rear hatch (if it is even a hatch? There are no shots of it open) slides out to create more interior space:

Lastly, solar panels flip out from the top.

At press time, there was no word on if this would see production, or even what markets it's aimed at.

Specialty Tools: A Snow Saw for Safety and Shelter

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 15:32:46 +0000

An avalanche can literally go from 0-60 within seconds. The impact of the onrushing snow is enough to break bones and cause internal injuries. hould you survive those but be buried, you'll run out of air within 15 minutes.

This is why avalanche forecasters exist. These men and women, whether employed by local governments, research institutions or private companies, travel to avalanche-prone regions to conduct testing. They dig a pit into a slope, and do what's called an Extended Column Test (ECT), using a saw to expose a tall column or slab of snow.

They then tap on the top of the column, using increasing amounts of force. They observe both where the column fractures and how much force was required to create that fracture in order to determine the stability of the snow.

Cutting through the snow requires precision and a specially-designed saw. This $65 Beta Snow Science Saw, by outdoor equipment manufacturer Mountain Safety Research, fits the bill.

The stainless steel saw is designed to be easy to carry, weighing just 7 oz (178g). The blade is laser-etched with measurement markings, so you can cut the column to the desired dimensions without needing to carry a second measuring tool. The teeth are designed to slice through snow and ice without clogging, and are also tough enough to cut through wood (if, for example, you unexpectedly run into a buried branch in the area you're cutting). This also makes the saw handy for carving a snow shelter in an emergency.

The saw was designed by Cascade Designs, the parent company of Mountain Safety Research.

Banana Republic’s new White Lotus collection is designed for you to look MOV (moneyed on vacation)

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Banana Republic wants you to be ready for check-in at whichever balmy, poolside escape you might venture to after months of clutching hot toddies and sloughing on heavy duty night creams.

[Photo: Banana Republic]

Its new White Lotus collection, made in collaboration with the hit HBO show, is a resort collection that’s about allowing its wearers to enjoy an uncomplicated spritz and shvitz in options they can pull from their suitcase while using their PTO. Banana Republic designed the men’s and women’s capsule collection, available in 26 stores and online beginning March 6, with weighty high quality and ethically sourced fabrics. Prices range from $40 to $300. But more broadly, the collection also points to how the clothing company is repositioning for a new chapter of its own, as it seeks to regain relevance and elevate its brand positioning.

The rebrand of Gap Inc and its subsidiaries, including Banana Republic, has been underway for over a year now. Gap hired Zac Posen as its creative director just over a year ago, and so far, he has delivered on reviving the stalling portfolio of American classics through more contemporary design, styling, and campaigns and red carpet appearances featuring true gets in terms of talent, including Tyla, Anne Hathaway, and Timothée Chalamet. Posen recently launched GapStudio, a higher end sub brand—which doubles a soft marketing strategy of elevating overall brand perception.

[Photo: Banana Republic]

The White Lotus collection is one prong of this repositioning strategy. A topical collaboration could also bring new customers into the store, who then shop its core collection. It aligns with the company’s approach to “fashion entertainment” concepted by Gap Inc CEO Richard Dixon, says Meena Anvary, Banana Republic’s head of marketing. “It’s just such a natural spit from a brand standpoint with our ethos and White Lotus’s: premium, the sense of discovery, adventure, exploration.”

Nicole Wiesmann, Banana Republic’s vice president of men’s design who led the design of the capsule, tells me she designed the 24-piece collection to mix and match, which is necessary for collections with such a limited number of pieces. (something Uniqlo’s Clare Waight Keller has echoed) The team pulled print and color inspiration from the tropical forest, architecture, and patterns of Thailand, and sought to balance modern utility, casual elements, and a sense of elegance, she says. When I met with Wiesmann at the chain’s Soho location on an overcast 50-degree morning, she had winterized her pull from the collection: she wore the men’s Bermuda short in black with a black sweater and a pair of black Margiela Tabis.

[Photo: Banana Republic]

Wiesmann, a fan of the show, pulled fabrics from Banana Republic’s archives in New York to design the 24-piece collection, and took inspiration from vintage military pieces due to their utility for the collection’s voluminous cargo pants and jackets, which also have reinforced patches and flat felled seams common to workwear to increase durability. (And lots of pockets, which are ideal for carrying passports, wallets, and the like when traveling—especially for men who don’t typically carry purses, she says.)

The men’s collection also includes turquoise short sleeve silk button downs, crocheted polos, and grey striped linen pants. Many of the patterns, which were inspired by latticework that appears in the show’s sets, cross over to the women’s collection. The knitwear designers also interpreted the print for the knitted polos in juicy passionfruit yellow and cream.

[Photo: Banana Republic]

The women’s collection includes a wide leg powder pink pant, white bandeau top, silk maxi dress with a slit to “get a little leg out,” and linen minidress, which have small fit details like back ties and elastic for ease of wear across body types. “There’s a fluidness to it,” she says of the pieces.

Both the men’s Bermuda short as well as the silk tops have a weighty hand feel that points to the quality of the fabrics themselves, which are 100% silk, European flax standard linen, and Olympias Italian cotton, which is the same the brand uses for most of its chinos, and makes the pieces easy to dress down or up, Wiesmann says. All of the linens are traceable, meaning the factory has to be approved.

Wiesmann attributes the quality and more approachable price point of the collection, which began development about a year ago, to a few things: the company’s scale, and its longstanding close relationships with certain mills and factories. “In some cases, if we really want that quality, we take the hit,” she says. Long term, it establishes Banana Republic as a brand with a consistent sense of elevated quality.

[Photo: Banana Republic]

I asked Anvary and Wiesmann if there was a challenge in designing a collection with appeal that’s also inspired by a show with morally complicated characters. “Our focus is really on making this collection available to everyone,” says Anvary, referring to its bridge price point, high quality fabrics, and versatility. So even if some of the characters might be LBH (losers back home, cough, Gary) you can still look MOV (Moneyed on Vacation).

Why You Should Always Have a Kitchen Sink Caddy in Your Shower

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 13:30:00 +0000

It’s perfect for small spaces! READ MORE...

Five beautiful bags that also get the job done

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 13:00:00 +0000

Over the past decade, as I’ve curated this annual list of best bags, there’s been a strong focus on utility. But this year, bag designers are eager to create bags that make a statement, while also improving women’s lives with useful features.

In some ways, the bag industry is coming full circle. When I first started working on this list, the bag industry was dominated by big brands like Coach and Kate Spade that were more concerned with fashion than function. But then, a new generation of direct-to-consumer brands like Dagne Dover, Cuyana, and Senreve popped up, creating bags full of features like laptop and water bottle sleeves that helped women get through busy days. In some ways, these startups changed the entire universe of bag designs. “Now, functionality is table stakes for bag designers,” says Karla Gallardo, co-founder and CEO of Cuyana. “The trick is creating a highly functional bag that’s also spectacular.”

Many new bags on the market today are meant to stand out and allow the wearer to express herself. They come in architectural shapes, with interesting silhouettes. But they are all designed to get you from packed days at work to the weekend to your long flight. Here is our pick of the best work-life bags of 2025. And they all happened to be created by women-owned startups.

Cuyana

Mila Satchel, $798

If you’re looking for a bag that will make an impression, consider the Mila. It’s the kind of structurally gorgeous bag that will elevate your look as you go in to an important board or investor meeting.

Cuyana spends many years designing bags, then testing them with customers to continue making tweaks and improvements. This particular bag is specifically designed for travelers. It has a travel sleeve that fits over luggage and importantly, it has a wide base so it can sit under the seat in front of you. And you can carry it two ways, with the wide short handles or with a strap that you can clip on.

When it opens, everything is easily accessible and visible. There’s a slot for your laptop, as well as pockets for your phone and a clip for your key. You can even purchase a clutch that clips into Mila, so you can leave the big bag at home and take the smaller bag out to dinner. The whole system is designed to save you time on high-pressure days.

Parker Thatch

Jane, starting at $698

These days, with hybrid work, the amount we need to carry every day varies tremendously. Some days, you need to carry your laptop and files, the next day, you might just need a wallet and chapstick.

Parker Thatch, a California-based label, believes your bag should magically shrink and expand depending on what you’re doing for the day. That’s precisely what it has achieved with its Jane bag. It’s made from soft, buttery leather that can fit a large laptop. But when the bag isn’t full, it collapses in an elegant way that gives you a relaxed, put together look.

It comes in a wide range of colors to suit different aesthetics. The navy and espresso will fit into a more formal workplace, but you can also opt for leopard print, platinum, or camo with a red stripe if you want to go bolder.

Clare V.

Bateau Tote, $475

For another collapsible bag, Clare V.’s Bateau tote also has an amazing ability to transform. On the surface, it has a simple tote silhouette that can fit a laptop along with everything you might need for your workday. It has an over the shoulder strap for easy carrying.

But when you don’t need to fill it up, can collapse the tote into a much smaller bag by bringing the two edges together. You can then carry it with short handles which happen to have the word “Ciao” on them, in a quirky bohemian style Clare V. is known for.

This tote is very practical, but it is also fun and unique. As icing on the cake, this bag has a gorgeous texture that weaves two colors of blue together to create a checker pattern.

Oleada

Wavia Bag Plus, starting at $635

If you need to head to the office every day and are constantly on the road for business trips, you need a bag that will allow you to easily carry a lot of heavy items, including your laptop and documents. There are many travel brands that sell products that do the job, but they don’t look stylish.

Oleada’s Wavia bag wants to be both. It has clean lines and a curved wave design, and it is packed with useful features. It can be carried as a backpack, a shoulder bag, a cross-body and a handbag. It has a luggage sleeve that allows you to put it on your rolling luggage. And even has a lock closure to keep the bag securely closed.

Since the bag is designed around your laptop, it comes in two sizes: 13 inch and 16 inch. You can get it in either leather or a vegan synthetic material that comes in a wide range of colors. And importantly, no matter what material you choose, the bag is very light, weighing in at around 2 lbs.

Linquist

Hilma, $750

Linquist, a studio studio based in Rhode Island, creates bags that are inspired by works of art. The Hilma, for instance, is designed around by the pleasing shape of an ellipse, with an oval base and a gradually widening top. The bag is named after Hilma af Klint, a Swedish artist who was among the first abstract artists in Western art history. Her paintings are grounded in geometric shapes, exploring how these figures appear both in the body and in the natural world.

The Hilma bag is big enough to get you through busy days, and it is designed to be worn for a long time. It is handmade in Rhode Island by a team of artisans, and crafted from full grain Vachetta leather that is not treated with preservatives or chemicals. Over time, the material is designed to patina as it is exposed to your hands and the elements. It comes in a wide array of colors, but because it is made in small batches, different colors are available at different times.

This major ad agency for Google, Samsung, and Nike just bought back its independence

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 12:07:02 +0000

After 23 years as part of advertising and marketing services holding company IPG, creative agency R/GA bought back its independence through a new partnership between R/GA’s global management and private equity firm Truelink Capital.

It marks the official announcement of a move reported by AdAge earlier this month, and after leaks about a potential sale emerged last summer. The management team leading the agency back to private business is headed by R/GA’s global CEO, Robin Forbes, and chair and global chief creative officer Tiffany Rolfe. Truelink Capital is also an investor in marketing tech companies Flipp and Ansira, as well as experiential marketing firm GES. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

R/GA’s current major global clients still include Google, Samsung, Moncler, TurboTax, Nike, and Eli Lilly.

The move comes as IPG awaits approval of its merger with fellow public holding company Omnicom, which would create the world’s largest advertising services firm. R/GA’s new partners at Truelink have established a $50 million Innovation Fund for a boost in new skill sets and talent, as well as acquisitions for new capabilities, emerging tools, and platforms. The agency is also establishing a Strategic Advisory Council of senior marketing and technology executives to support emerging AI client transformation opportunities across multiple sectors.

Forbes and Rolfe spoke exclusively to Fast Company about the deal and what it means for the agency. Both focused on the age-old industry debate between the freedom and flexibility to innovate in independence versus ultimately being a cog in a much larger publicly traded machine.

“It made sense that, for the kind of company that we are, we needed to ensure we can change how we work and the model that we deliver to clients with more autonomy,” says Rolfe. “To really look at a longer horizon for how we think about our business.”

R/GA made its name and reputation through its innovative work for brands during the first digital revolution, and Forbes and Rolfe say this new iteration of the agency is aiming to use that DNA to forge its future in the AI age. The company has been investing in AI-related tech for the past decade, particularly through its venture arm with companies like Reply.ai and Clarifai.

“This moment is for us to really accelerate the evolution that we’ve been working on for some time of both the services that we offer, but also the way we’re doing our work,” says Forbes.

A new day one

It’s no secret that over the past few years, IPG’s digital agencies, including R/GA, have struggled financially. As other holding companies have done in recent years IPG has sold and consolidated many of its agency holdings. Last year, it sold once-hot agency Huge to private equity firm AEA Investors, and sold agencies Deutsch New York and Hill Holliday to Attivo Group.

R/GA has faced multiple layoff rounds and executive departures in recent years, after two decades of leading in digital advertising and brand work. Among many other things, this is the shop that created Nike Plus (2006), the viral Straight Outta Compton campaign for Beats By Dre (2015), and won the Super Bowl for Reddit with a five-second ad (2021).

There is no single reason that the agency was considered extraneous by IPG, but the leak of an impending sale last summer actually created a silver lining for Forbes, Rolfe, and the rest of the leadership. The process of buying back the agency could be done in public, and they could talk to clients about the implications and opportunities out in the open. The response from both its employees and clients was positive, which gave the team confidence and momentum in speaking to potential suitors.

Now, Rolfe says that this is like a new day one for the agency that provides the opportunity to become a 48-year-old startup. “We have the legacy of experience and knowledge, but now we get a little bit of a refresh,” she says. “There’s this moment now where you can disrupt the idea that you have to be this big, scaled holding company size to address Fortune 500 clients. Or if you look at startups, what are many missing? What can’t they do? And I think we have enough scale but can still be agile. We have real deep experience with Fortune 500 types of scaled problems, and we can address that and build teams in a really modern agile way that allows us to address a lot of different needs.”

New venture

In any instance where a company embarks on a major shift like this, you will hear words like reinvention, reinvigoration, and the like. But what makes this more tangibly intriguing is the $50 million fund the agency has to work with to actually put concrete moves behind those words.

Forbes says the focus of the fund is on three distinct areas. First, new hiring and training in order to upskill its talent base and augmenting its current talent with new kinds of skill sets. Second, product development in the form of blueprints or accelerators for improved and innovative work, that can result in IP and other assets. And third, building in new capabilities through acquisition.

“We’re really excited about the concrete commitments to actually deploying capital in the business to accelerate this growth and this transformation mission that we’re on,” says Forbes. “It’s extra fuel to accelerate some of the things that we’ve been wanting to do, and feel are really important to do quickly.”

Disney’s new NYC office is designed to shape-shift as fast as media does

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 12:06:20 +0000

Walt Disney’s new headquarters in New York is like a city contained within a single block. By the end of this summer, around 5,000 people will work from within the stately 1.2-million-square-foot skyscraper, and the company ambitiously designed it to create a sense of flexibility and appeal for every single one of them.

[Photo: Dave Burk/Disney]

That’s a tall order, because the entertainment corporation’s portfolio is more diverse than ever. Today Disney’s work includes studio films and theme parks, but also broadcast news, radio, podcasts, streaming, digital media, and magazines. The media roster, largely based in New York, includes ABC News, ESPN, Hulu, and talk shows like The View, Live with Kelly and Mark, and the Tamron Hall Show. The brands were previously spread across multiple buildings in Manhattan and are now all relocating to the new building. So instead of referencing Disney’s cinematic archives (which made sense when creating a workplace for Imagineers) the design firms behind the building—SOM on architecture, Gensler on interiors, and SCAPE on the outdoor areas—looked to the core of its business in New York and designed a building that can move right alongside the fast-evolving nature of media.

[Photo: Dave Burk/Disney]

“Compared to Burbank and Orlando, New York Disney culture is so driven by news and sports and information as opposed to entertainment,” says Colin Koop, a partner at SOM. “The feeling of this building is meant to bring a cohesive culture across many business segments.” To that end, SOM and Gensler designed the building to be durable enough, aesthetically and functionally, to house all of its New York operations under one roof now and in the future. They created a space where everyone, no matter if they are an assistant on a radio show or a gaffer on a broadcast set or a developer on a streaming service, can do their best work.

Disney has a history of flexing its ambition through architecture. The elegance of 7 Hudson Square—also known as the Robert A. Iger building—might be surprising in comparison to the company’s previous corporate image, which leaned heavily into fantasy. In the 1980s and 1990s, under the leadership of then-CEO Michael Eisner, it practically collected postmodernist buildings by the era’s heavy hitters. Remember how Michael Graves used 19-foot-tall statues of the Seven Dwarfs as columns? Or Arata Isozaki’s homage to Mickey’s ears? Disney’s corporate strategy, which involved a web of interconnected platforms centered around its films, has diversified quite a bit since the early 1990s when those buildings were commissioned (and when the media landscape was much simpler than it is now).

[Photo: Dave Burk/Disney]

LESS GLASS, MORE PERSONALITY

For a long time, New York’s 21st-century energy-efficient buildings have shared a similar look: those ubiquitous mirror-like glass facades, like the towers in Hudson Yards and the World Trade Center. However, on the outside, Disney’s headquarters—which is sheathed in viridian terra-cotta tiles and bird safe glass—is a spiritual descendant of sophisticated, materially rich, and lustrous Art Deco designs like the peacock-green McGraw Hill building.

[Photo: Dave Burk/Disney]

Because of zoning and setback laws, the building actually looks like a collection of gridded towers. The 22-story structure has bronze-framed windows at street level and polished champagne brass awnings and decorative elements over its entrances—materials that “resonate with the surrounding context without replicating it,” says Colin Koop, a partner at SOM, one of the firms behind the building. There are restaurant and retail storefronts on the street level (which is rare for a corporate headquarters to have); offices, newsrooms, and a screening theater in the floors above; and three live-audience studios down below. When did the building open?

While the street view of the building is important, it’s also impressive under the hood. Disney’s HQ is one of the first large-scale projects to be completed since New York passed Local Law 97, a policy that requires buildings to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The building is all electric—the most noticeable difference between a conventional structure is there is no cooking gas for the kitchens and restaurants—and received a LEED Platinum rating thanks to a suite of features like rooftop solar panels, windows outfitted with automated daylight sensors that adjust their tint (which helps reduce heat gain), and a direct outside air system and heat pumps for ventilation, which is more energy efficient than a standard HVAC setup.

[Photo: Dave Burk/Disney]

“That cocktail of systems is becoming very widely adopted now,” Koop says. (A bike room with showers also helps employees choose low-carbon transit to work.) While the building is bright and light inside, windows compose less than 50% of the facade, another move that helps reduce energy use.

“Every developer and broker will tell you that tenants only want a glass building,” Koop says. “I enjoy an all-glass view as much as the next person, but I do think that you can create that sense of openness in different ways.” For example, the company decided to keep conference rooms and private offices toward the core of the building, and workstations and lounges near the windows, so light is more free-flowing and equitably distributed.

That energy efficiency also helps if there’s an extreme weather event that cuts off power to the building. It can run off the grid for days thanks to multiple generators on the roof—a necessary feature because of the newsrooms in the building. “There’s a tremendous amount of resiliency in this building,” Koop says. “It cannot go black ever.”

[Photo: Dave Burk/Disney]

CAMERA READY FOR ANYTHING

The broadcast and production needs, which are the most technically complex of all the teams that will use the building, determined a significant part of the structure’s engineering. In order to achieve the vast, column-free spaces necessary for the studios located in the basement, SOM suspended the core of the sublevels, which are located beneath the nearby Holland Tunnel and subway lines, from a truss on the second storey. “This building is like an iceberg,” Koop says.

Because of the site, the broadcast architecture required extensive soundproofing and vibration insulation. A band could perform in each of the three 20,000-square-foot studios at the same time and the audience wouldn’t be able to hear what’s happening in the adjacent space. The studios’ sets themselves are essentially giant LED screens, which enables producers to change up the look and feel without a full build-out. One central control studio manages the sets—a practical and resource-saving move.

[Photo: Garrett Rowland/Disney]

“You can get production moving faster with more variety in any form you want,” says Stephen Newbold, an architect at Gensler who specializes in design for the entertainment and media industries and spearheaded the broadcast architecture and interiors. This approach is a departure from a legacy where each show operated like “little islands” with its own studio and set of technology, Newbold adds. “We can’t do that in today’s media world. Everything’s got to connect. Everything’s got to be agile.”

The design teams had to create an additional, separate entrance for the studios’ 600 daily talk show attendees as well. The audience entry point leads to waiting zones inside the building where people can queue up instead of crowding the sidewalk—another detail that helps the building remain respectful to the street life in Hudson Square, which is a growing tech district.

[Photo: Dave Burk/Disney]

SOM and Gensler also emphasized wide-open spaces on the newsroom floors, which, like the underground production studios, have a rather acrobatic structural support system. There, the radio station WABC and broadcast show ABC News will operate from a centralized area. “That enables us to not only deliver in today’s increasingly more complex news environment, but also equips us to evolve with future advancements in technology, new formats, and the continued transformation of our business,” says Debra OConnell, the president of ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks.

[Photo: Dave Burk/Disney]

Shape-shifting on demand

Flexibility extends elsewhere in the building. The building’s 300-seat theater can be pitch-black for film screenings, or Disney can slide open shades to let daylight in during a long lecture or meeting. Similarly, the Great Hall—a communal town-square-like space on a centralized amenity floor that includes a private Starbucks, cafeteria, Disney store, and a library—can be cleared out for events and parties. “It’s supposed to have 10 lives in every day,” says Johnathan Sandler, a principal at Gensler.

The same is true for the offices, meeting rooms, and phone rooms, which are all outfitted with tools for remote conferencing. With just a change of furniture, every conference room could be an office and every office could be a conference room as the business needs change. The design team has already tested this flexibility. The ratio of phone rooms jumped 20% because of the pandemic. “The expectation now is that almost any meeting, even if it’s in person, is going to have some virtual participant joining,” Sandler says, noting that as more teams move into the building, they continue to fine-tune the mix.

[Photo: Dave Burk/Disney]

As in many new offices today, part of the reason for a wide array of interior spaces is to also allow people on-site to have more choice in where they work. This wasn’t the case in Disney’s New York buildings before. Meanwhile, the amenities on offer weren’t consistent, particularly for people with production roles.

“It was very important to make sure that everyone, regardless of who you were or what you were doing in the building, had this really superlative experience,” Sandler says. “It doesn’t have to be just based on your function. A lot of it’s just based on your personality. The hope is really that people will treat this as a vertical campus.”

[Photo: Dave Burk/Disney]

Inside the great egg branding crisis

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Matt Sia is a big fan of eggs. With his daughter, he’ll make slow scrambles bathed in pricey European butter. And as executive creative director at the design and branding firm Pearlfisher, he brought that same love to an egg carton he designed for the now retired brand Consider Pastures.

The regenerative farming producers created eggs with rich burnt sienna shells, and Sia designed a complementary blue package that celebrated their natural hue. To reach this reveal, the carton unfolded in a dramatic, multi-tiered story much like an Apple product, with messages like “care” and “cultivate” highlighted in gold foil. These premium eggs sold for $5. But today, as another New Yorker elbowing for eggs, that feels like a completely different era to Sia.

“Now everything has gotten thrown out the window. You stand at the shelf and and everything is $10 to $12. And I’m trying to figure out what the differences are. Being in this business, I am thinking, ‘I appreciate what you’re doing, but I’m not spending that much on these eggs,‘” he says. “This is coming from someone who cares a lot about brand. And I’m like, ’fuck it.’ I want to get free range if I can find them, but I look at the price tag attached and say there’s no way I can spend that much. This pack won’t last.”

Sia is all of us in the age of egg scarcity. He cares about the eggs his family is eating. But he cannot functionally care when those eggs get too expensive. The pantry staple, consumed by 90% of American households, currently costs 40% more than it did at the start of 2025. And it’s pushing the very idea of brand and consumer values to a breaking point.

Egg shortages are revealing a simple truth: People never had much brand loyalty to eggs, and as prices are spiking, whatever values previously drove your egg purchasing decisions are likely to be challenged by your wallet.

Consider Pastures

The death of the premium egg brand

Consumers traditionally choose an egg by type—conventional or speciality. Conventional buyers assume all eggs are the same, so whatever is cheap works. Specialty buyers might be coaxed toward animal welfare labels like “cage free” or “pasture raised,” or boosted nutritional attributes like omega 3s from hens fed fortified diets.

“There’s a guilt. Everyone looks for different principles, different claims and qualities, and sometimes that comes down to, ‘can I afford to buy this?’ Everyone has a different degree of choice when it comes to that sort of thing,” says Sia. “The reason it feels eggs are blurred together today is that the delta between your price and principles becomes so large . . . everyone here in NY is just trying to find the cheapest eggs.”

Most eggs look more or less the same, and so packaging is the vehicle for signaling a more or less premium egg brand. Ironically, the finest boutique eggs—those sold direct from small farmers—are distributed in forgettable, paper pulp cartons, often direct from the farm to the consumer. The store shelf tells a different story. Here you have a mix of cheap protective packaging—paper, styrofoam, and plastic—sold by a slew of brands that almost no consumer registers, according to data from Nielson and The American Egg Board.

Instead of brand loyalty, these shoppers hunt and peck for the best ratio of price and their desired attributes like “free range.” In many cases, styrofoam signals “conventional,” so consumers are drawn right to those packs. But while the package may attract a purchase, ultimately, consumers do expect to take a peek inside to double check the merchandise. As Sia points out, eggs might be the only item at the grocery store that people regularly open to inspect to ensure they aren’t broken. (Nobody opens a pack of Tide Pods to check if they’re leaking.)

As for the fate of the premium egg, for now, such an idea seems to ignore that, in an age of scarcity, all eggs have become something of a premium. People never cared that much about the brand of egg they purchased, and they are almost assuredly less concerned now.

Organic Egg Scorecard

The shifting identity of the egg as a brand

Eggs are sold by brands, but in reality, they are a much greater brand unto themselves—one that signals a cheaper, more convenient, more ethical protein than meat. The American Egg Board is a nonprofit funded by farmers to protect and grow that brand, with the primary mission is to increase our demand for this staple.

When Edward Hoffman took over as VP of marketing and communications two years ago, he charted a major strategy forward. He identified new target markets, and launched the organization’s “biggest and boldest” program ever to re-excite the market about eggs, filled with delectable recipes and information on nutrition.

But into Q4 of last year, the industry’s four-year nervousness about bird flu spiked into a true crisis. “Me and my team started looking at sort of the landscape ahead, and said, ‘you know, we need to start slow-rolling some of our programming, because we do not want to come across as tone deaf to consumers,’” Hoffman recounts.

What followed was not just a cessation of The American Egg Board’s plan, but a complete shift in strategy as it eyes the big egg holiday, Easter, on the horizon. Instead of positioning eggs as delectable and healthy, they are now positioning eggs as safe and frugal-friendly. The company is even amidst a new website redesign highlighting this new approach—aimed at both consumers and retailers that distribute eggs.

On the safety end, they’re tamping down concerns that you can get bird flu from eggs (when cooked, they are considered safe). And on the frugal end, they’re pushing an approach to eggs that helps “maximize the carton.” “We don’t want consumers wasting a single egg during this time,” says Hoffman.

The board’s new guidance comes in the form of meal planning tips, recipes, and teaching consumers things like, yes, you can freeze eggs to preserve them longer.

“One example: If you really want scrambled eggs, maybe add in some other product with a cottage cheese or something, to sort of extend that carton,” says Hoffman. “And I’m perfectly comfortable [saying that]. I want to meet our consumers where they’re at because you know what, that’s what they need right now. That they are taken care of and they know that eggs have their back even when the industry is constrained.”

Just Egg

A moment for egg alternatives

But while consumers may be settling for the types of eggs they wouldn’t have bought a year ago, many believe supply chains may continue to be challenged through 2026 given the logistics of egg production. Sometimes the store shelves are just empty. What then?

For Josh Terick, the CEO of Eat Just (which makes the mung bean-derived egg substitute, Just Egg), this is the opportunity of a lifetime.

“Chicken eggs feel particularly uncool and not reliable right now. And it’s not even close: much more so than the launch, this is far and away the most important moment in the last 12 years since I cofounded the company,” says Terick. “It’s not big, but it’s just a little window open . . . where often around the country right now, we’re the only egg on the shelf . . . where people are thinking, is there actually another egg other than the chicken egg?”

The moment is a payoff for one of Terick’s key strategies, who has long insisted Just Egg be offered beside chicken eggs. Just Egg pops off the shelf in its yolky yellow milk carton packaging, with a modernist sans serif font meant to appeal to design-appreciative urbanites and affluent suburbs (which Eat Just considers its base)

For a company that’s “not suffering” but still only doing “tens of millions” in sales, Terick recognizes the potential inflection point that may not come again. Sales are up 70% YOY, and they’re seeing a 5x increase to growth on one of their core products at a top retailer. To feed new demand, Terick has completely rebuilt his schedule since egg shortages hit, responding to retailers, restaurants, and other entities inquiring about Just Egg at all hours of the day. In the last week, he’s spoken to a top three convenience chain, a top ten restaurant chain, and the U.S. military about providing Just Egg. He then reads me an email from a North Carolina mega breakfast restaurant that asked about Just Egg concluding, “sounds weird, but we’ll try it.”

Balancing the tone of Just Egg is key in this moment, and the company will be adopting a new brand slogan soon that gently pokes at the instability of the egg market: “Yo, chicken eggs, we got it from here.” They’re providing samples to NPOs, offering discounts to solitary retailers that don’t sell Just Egg, and partnering with 50 bodegas across NYC to sell Just Egg sandwiches as part of a “bird flu bailout.”

“Every day, I just keep thinking, what else? What else can we be doing that we’re not doing that ten years from now, I [see when I] look back on this,” says Terick, who admits their greatest appeal to most retailers is just that they’re dependable in a time of crisis. “If you call them up, they would say, ‘you know what you can do for us, deliver on time.’”

The other thing keeping Terick up at night is how the company is positioned in pricing. For years, Just Egg sold at a loss, keeping the price around $5/carton to have closer parity with regular eggs. More recently, finding himself sick of raising more money, Terick prioritized the health of his business, and now Just Egg sells at around $7 to $9 a pack, which offers Just Egg a double digit margin. But in two years, Terick believes they have a technological path to reduce the price of producing Just Egg to have parity with eggs—and he can’t help but wonder, is it worth waiting until then to lower prices, or would more be gained by doing so now?

“It’s like these two things are pulling in me: One is, yeah, let’s f’ing go! Of course, this is a moment!’” says Terrick. “And then the other side is, boy, I like not spending every day trying to raise money.” Just Egg will probably reach a compromise, offering discounts like “buy one get one free” through retailers, before dropping prices in the future.

In any case, Terrick and Sia are in full agreement about the future of eggs on whole. The very idea of the boutique egg seems in jeopardy in an age of scarcity. And the ultimate cost in an uncertain egg market isn’t just the price of protein, but our psychological comfort in an era when supply chains of all sorts of goods are unreliable.

“What’s next after eggs, are there things we don’t consider? Grains? Bread? Milk,” muses Sia. “It can spiral. We have access to everything all the time . . . then you realize . . . [we don’t].”

How Altadena’s community is leading its fire recovery efforts

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Under the rally cry of “Altadena Is Not for Sale,” the people of the multi-racial, middle-class town of Altadena, California, are aiming to take charge of their own recovery and rebuilding from the Los Angeles Eaton fires, which killed 17 people, burned more than 14,000 acres, and destroyed over 9,000 homes and businesses. Three community organizations and the local Native American tribes reflect the various perspectives, and collective unity, on how Altadena might avoid the fate of other communities whose recovery ended up being controlled by big developers.

Altadena: Not For Sale, My Tribe Rise, and Altadena Strong are three community organizations who have cohosted events to bring together the Altadena community for recovery and rebuild. The Fernandeño Tatavian band of Mission Indians, Gabrielino San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, and the San Fernando Band of Mission Indians have been involved in mutual aid, fighting fires, and are working closely with officials to implement Indigenous fire management practices to prevent future fires.

[L to R] Melissa Michelson and other Altadena: Not for Sale members set up a table at the Altadena Strong Event. [Photo: Dori Tunstall]

Altadena: Not For Sale

Altadena: Not For Sale states that its mission is to “help the under and non-insured to be able to stay” in Altadena and “not fall prey to predatory land speculators.” Organized by Melissa Michelson, the organization held a protest on January 18th at which they shared their list of seven demands, including the establishing a land trust, zoning regulations to prevent over development, group deals with architects and contractors, and educating residents on their rights. The organization has set up information booths at various local events to have residents order yard signs saying “Altadena: Not For Sale” to show their solidarity.

“This is a project. It’s a very unfortunate situation to be in,” says Michelson. “But maybe we could build something from it and be a community that doesn’t sell out to developers and that keeps the people in place. It’s not going to be a 100% back to normal, but maybe Altadena can be revived with such strong community effort. That’s my hope.”

Alphonso Browne, an Altadena: Not For Sale volunteer and 39 year resident of Altadena, lost his home of 34 years and two close neighbors to the Eaton fire [The Bowne Family Go-Fund Me]. His insurance company canceled his 20-year-old fire insurance policy just one month before the fires.

“The opportunity is for us to build a stronger community bond,” says Browne. “Most of us was middle class, so the money doesn’t move us in our living. We want a very strong tight-knit community and that is what we have the opportunity to now build it.”

My Tribe Rise and Altadena: Not For Sale brought community organizations and fire-affected residents together to connect, heal, and organize. [Photo: Dori Tunstall]

My Tribe Rise

My Tribe Rise was started in 2019 by Victor Hodgson and Heavenly Hughes to increase neighborhood peace and reduce the stigma of gang affiliation, especially in West Altadena. They are ensuring that the 18% Black and 30% Hispanic communities, who boasted a 75% home ownership rate, do not get displaced from the fires.

My Tribe Rise is adapting its mutual aid network and community organizing into the cohesive infrastructure by which Altadena can lead its own recovery efforts. “When the [COVID-19] Pandemic was here, we led our community through it. And in this catastrophe, we will do the same thing,” says Hughes. “We focus on food and housing insecurities. We focus on economic development. We focus on ways and solutions to end violence in our community. And personally, I feel like the folks that are trying to steal our property, that is violence. And so, we’re going to address violence in our community.”

A community-led recovery is required in Altadena because it is an unincorporated town in Los Angeles County, which means that it does not have a mayor or city hall to represent its recovery and rebuild interests. It does have a voluntary town council, but it is only advisory to Kathryn Barger, the Los Angeles County Supervisor for the 5th District, who has oversight of “portions of 20 cities, 63 unincorporated communities, 15 neighborhoods in the city of Los Angeles.”

The absence of a mayor and others is seen as a positive opportunity. My Tribe Rise and Altadena: Not For Sale cohosted a community event on February 8 to bring together the various organizations, such as Altadena Strong and the LA Fires Survivor’s Committee, who are also focused on co-building a community-led recovery.

“There’s an opportunity to build something long-lasting because it won’t get corrupted or muddied with profit,” says Gabriela Garcia of LA Fires Survivors. “It’s coming from a place of true care for the community.”

[L to R] Tucker Davis, Gabriela Garcia, Sam Taylor, and Christine Rodriguez of LA Fire Survivors gathered at an Altadena community event. [Photo: Dori Tunstall]

Altadena Strong

Altadena Strong was founded by Altadena resident Freddy Sayegh, whose extended family lost seven homes and two businesses in the Eaton fires. Though driven by attachment and emotion, Altadena Strong offers a practical argument for the community to come together to decide how to spend its possible $25 billion in economic resources. On Feb. 5, Sayegh organized a community town hall meeting attended by over 200 residents, government officials, and representatives from the Red Cross, FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, and the Small Business Administration.

“Only Altadena is going to save Altadena. No one in Los Angeles or Sacramento is thinking about us,” he said in the meeting, “There are certain things that we can negotiate directly with the manufacturer. We’ll call Canada and order the wood direct. And we will order enough and have it here. We can have a bunch of architects and contractors on salary. And a team that we organize will lay concrete. It’s going to be 20 to 30 cents on the dollar. It’s the only way it’s going to work. We must get together.”

Freddy Sayegh of Altadena Strong hosted over 200 Altadena home owners and renters at his community town hall. [Photo: Dori Tunstall]

Collective Unity

To succeed in its community-led recovery and rebuild, Altadena requires the fusion of the various community groups and Tongva tribal leaders into a council who can design and implement the plan for Altadena’s recovery and rebuild. On February 13, an virtual community meeting was called by Altadena Strong and others to form the Altadena Coalition with the goal to “form community teams, establish the largest non-profit organization dedicated to collective purchasing, negotiations, development, and revitalization, and ensure that Altadena’s future is built by its residents.”

Community teams identified to be filled included leadership and strategy, volunteer coordination and community support, procurement and rebuilding logistics, fundraising and financial support, communications and public awareness, and legal, policy, and compliance. Several community members volunteered their services during the call.

Community members across the different organizations recognize the challenges in aligning the competing interests within its diverse inhabitants, most of whom have been scattered across Southern California. They understand that the work is a minimum commitment of three years. And they mostly likely will not get paid, as a mayor or city council would, for doing the work. What brings them hope for success is their shared commitment to the deep heritage of the Altadena as a place where intersectionally Indigenous, Black, Hispanic, immigrant, and queer folks could build intergenerational homes for themselves and their families from life to death and life again.

The Hidden Dangers Of Pesticides You’ll Wish You Knew

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 06:31:57 +0000

Pesticides are formulated to kill things–insects, rodents, weeds, fungi, and microorganisms. Regardless of what the packaging says, anything that kills plants and animals poses a potential threat to humans. Here are some of the hidden dangers of pesticides you need to be aware of.

Hidden Dangers Of Pesticides

Pesticides kill insects. Herbicides kill weeds, bacteria, and fungi. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists them all as pesticides. They are everywhere because they are instrumental in growing the food that feeds everyone on the planet.

A 2020 US Geological Survey found at least five pesticides in 90% of the water samples they tested–including groundwater. Almost all fruits and vegetables you buy have pesticide residues on them. Some have the residue of over a dozen different pesticides.

Home gardeners often use chemical pesticides instead of natural homemade pesticides that work because the commercial products are easy, quick, effective, and long-lasting. Long-term exposure to toxic pesticides increases the possibility of suffering from the following diseases.

Respiratory Problems – Can cause coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, and asthma attacks–sometimes severe.
Cancer – Some pesticides are carcinogenic (cancer-causing). They can damage the cellular structures in humans–leading to the growth of cancerous cells. Glyphosate–found in Roundup–has been linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma but not conclusively.
Neurological Problems – Organophosphate pesticides can disrupt nerve function–increasing the risk of long-term brain and nervous system damage–increasing the possibility of Alzheimer’s and/or Parkinson’s diseases.
Hormonal Problems – Can interfere with endocrine function causing hormonal imbalances. Long-term exposure leads to fertility problems and reproductive problems. Pesticides can increase long-term developmental problems in children.
Skin Irritation – Cause irritation, burns, and an allergic reaction. Pesticides may be absorbed through the skin.
Headaches.
Nausea.
Immune System Suppression – Makes it harder to fight off infections.

Pets and Pesticides

Pets are particularly susceptible to pesticide poisoning in gardens and on lawns because they are closer to the plants and grass, rub and roll on it, and have less body weight to absorb pesticides. Symptoms of pet pesticide poisoning include vomiting, lethargy, seizures, and even death.

How Do You Get Pesticide Poisoning?

Pesticides are formulated for quick and easy absorption or ingestion into insects and weeds. They are easily absorbed by humans in various ways. Pesticides are often stored in body fat and are not easily excreted.

Ingestion. From eating unwashed fruits and vegetables.
Skin Absorption. From applying pesticides.
Eyes. Wind-borne or rubbing it into the eyes.
Inhalation. From applying pesticides or being exposed on windy days.

The post The Hidden Dangers Of Pesticides You’ll Wish You Knew appeared first on Homedit.

A Compact Victorian Terrace Preserved For Future Generations

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 03:00:38 +0000

A Compact Victorian Terrace Preserved For Future Generations

Architecture

by Christina Karras

The kitchen. Verde Guatamala Honed by Gitani Stone on benchtop. Walls painted Dulux Antique White USA. Inax Yohen Border tiles by Artedomus.

Verde Guatamala Honed by Gitani Stone on benchtop. Walls painted Dulux Antique White USA. Dining Chairs by Freedom. Fluere sculpture by Emily Hamann, Curatorial and Co. Artwork: Farmer In A Green Field by Nunzio Miano, Curatorial and Co. Vase: Luna by Katarina Wells, Curatorial and Co.

Navurban Byron Blackbutt by New Age Veneers on joinery. Inax Yohen Border tiles by Artedomus. Thread side table by Dimitri Vargas.

Helix 5 Light Pendant from Beacon Lighting. Dining Table by Coco Republic. Dining Chairs by Freedom. Artwork: Farmer In A Green Field by Nunzio Miano, Curatorial and Co. Vase: Luna by Katarina Wells, Curatorial and Co.

The living room opens to a courtyard. Window furnishing by Marlow & Finch. Sofa by Jardan.

The brick extension nods to the surrounding update terraces and aids with thermal performance.

The open-plan kitchen, dining, and living room.

Verde Guatamala Honed by Gitani Stone on bath top. Inax Yohen Border tile by Artedomus. Corella Wall Light from Alti.

Sky lights help increase natural light and space throughout the home.

The bedroom. Recycled blackbutt chevron parquetry from Australian Architectural Hardwoods. Walls painted Dulux Antique White USA. Estiluz Circ Ring Wall Light from Alti Lighting. Bed from Snooze. Foreseeable Painting by Morgan Stokes, Curatorial and Co.

The custom joinery features arches to match the house’s Victorian flair.

Storage is hidden in the hallway steps!

The circa-1890 home has an established dragon tree in the front yard that has survived the many renovations over the years.

Newtown in Sydney’s inner west is known for its late Victorian architecture, and Dragon Tree Terrace is one of these enduring homes that has stood for more than a century.

‘Originally constructed as working-class housing, the home has seen various modifications over the decades,’ architect Josephine Hurley says.

By the time Josephine’s clients — a young professional couple — purchased the property in June 2020, it had suffered from years of deferred maintenance after being used as a long-term rental.

‘The structure was physically degraded, with significant wear and tear, outdated amenities, and poor thermal performance. The lower ground level was dark, cold, and damp in winter, while the upper level often overheated in summer,’ Josephine adds.

Despite these challenges, the 1890s abode had ‘great potential’, a charming street presence with a mature dragon tree in the front garden, and a compact yet adaptable footprint.

The vision was to honour the homes heritage, while also introducing modern updates to enhance liveability.

‘A key inspiration was the existing architectural language of the home, particularly its use of arches in the verandah, fanlight, and boundary wall,’ Josephine says.

‘This motif was carried through to the interiors, creating a cohesive aesthetic.’

The works began with a sensitive restoration of the front rooms, before reconfiguring the rear with a new brick addition that opens to the inviting courtyard garden.

Making the most of the natural slope of the site, the existing upper level was raised slightly to increase the lower ground level’s ceiling height, improving the sense of space in the kitchen, living and dining room.

Now, the 120-square-metre floor plan places ‘quieter functions’ such as sleeping and working on the upper level, while cooking, dining, and living take place on the lower ground — fostering a stronger indoor-outdoor connection.

Some savvy storage solutions have also helped transform the terrace. In the new split-level hallway to the bedrooms upstairs, drawers are hidden with the steps, as mirrors and carefully placed sky lights create the ‘illusion’ of more room.

Reclaimed blackbutt parquetry was chosen for the floors, bringing richness and character back to the space along with timber veneer joinery.

In the kitchen and bathrooms, Verde Guatemala marble and green kit-kat tiles complement the visible greenery throughout the home.

‘It’s a home that not only looks beautiful but also serves as a sanctuary,’ Josephine says.

The clients say they love how their small footprint home ‘gradually reveals itself’ as you step inside the period facade.

But the best part for them is knowing they’ve played a part in extending the life of the old terrace: ‘We hope this home continues to bring joy and comfort for generations to come.’

Inside Disney’s stunning six-brand Oscars advertising stunt

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In the business world, advertisers are the stunt performers. Our fragmented media and pop cultural landscape has forced brands to really push stunts into the weird and wonderful. Whether it’s Snoop threatening to give up smoking, Ben Affleck working a Dunkin’ drive-thru, or a devil baby terrorizing the streets of New York. Meanwhile in Hollywood, the stunt performers are the ones who actually pull off the death-defying action that can make us gasp. They’re a breath of IRL fresh air in a world blanketed by visual-effects technology.

Now, for the biggest night in entertainment, these two worlds converge for a pretty epic stunt by both worlds’ definition. Disney Advertising, Jimmy Kimmel’s Kimmelot, and Ryan Reynolds’s Maximum Effort, have enlisted five different brands to create six commercials that will air during the Oscars ceremony, tonight at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET, featuring more than 75 stunt performers executing classic Hollywood stunts like skydiving, high falls, and dynamic fight scenes.

John Campbell, Disney Advertising’s senior vice president of entertainment and streaming solutions, says that a lot of their conversations with CMOs have revolved around looking to create quality content that can maximize a given cultural moment, in particular to live audiences. The Oscars ticked all of those boxes.

For the participating brands—Carnival Cruise Line, Kiehl’s, L’Oréal Paris, MNTN, and Samsung—Campbell says they saw the advantage of teaming up on a unique concept.

“We had this concept to shine a light on the stunt community and the tremendous impact that they have on film for all of us as fans,” says Campbell. “We see them as Hollywood’s hidden heroes, so we put the hypothesis out there: What if we invited them to step into the spotlight on entertainment’s biggest night? And honestly, what came about is kind of wild. We had 75 real-life stunt performers, 150 crew members, and we did this in a little over a week of filming and producing.”

The result may well be the biggest advertising stunt ever done for the Oscars.

Brands playing nice

Marketers typically do not like sharing the spotlight. But here, with Carnival Cruise Line, Kiehl’s, L’Oréal Paris, MNTN, and Samsung, there’s a balance among brands across product categories so that they can creatively all row in the same direction.

Campbell says that the company has brands it works with on a consistent basis and had a sense of who might want to test the waters of a new concept like this. “The question is, are brands really going to play together? So we’ve had to find the right brands who are going to trust Disney advertisers, going to trust the Academy in order to say, ‘You know what, we are going to play together, and something really special is going to come about.‘”

Kiehl’s general manager John Reed says this is the brand’s national TV-commercial debut, and it wanted to showcase authenticity, craftsmanship, and innovation. “With this being a multibrand project, it was important to us that the Kiehl’s spot felt endemic to the brand while fitting into the larger storytelling,” says Reed. “That we can stand out while fitting in.”

L’Oreal Paris USA president Laura Branik says this idea was a natural fit to showcase the performance of the brand’s Infallible 3-Second Setting Mist in a breakthrough way. “The collaborative process was really rooted in a shared vision and creativity,” says Branik. “We worked closely with Disney Advertising from the very start—from brainstorming concepts to shaping the final execution. We have all been working toward the same goal of elevating stunt performers who are so deserving of this spotlight, which has made the process truly collaborative and fun.”

The Carnival Cruises ad features stuntwoman Hannah Betts jumping from a helicopter at 11,000 feet right into the pool of a Carnival Cruise ship. The clip in the ad was Bett’s first take. “The Oscars delivers the right audience of prospective Carnival cruisers who love the fun of travel and live events,” says Carnival CMO Amy Martin Ziegenfuss. “This collaboration provided an opportunity to be more contextually relevant within the program, alongside other great brands and partners.”

The only nonconsumer brand of the lineup is ad tech firm MNTN, the parent company for Reynolds’s creative shop Maximum Effort. CEO Mark Douglas says that the company aims to showcase the power of storytelling during commercial time, and this stunt aligns perfectly with that mission. “It’s the ultimate way to show how advertising can be as thrilling and impactful as the content it complements,” says Douglas.

Stunt Advertising Evolved

It’s a novel concept getting five brands to collaborate on a six-ad extravaganza during the Oscars to celebrate stunt performers. But this isn’t Disney Advertising’s first crack at experimental ads.

Back in 2022, it worked with Kimmelot and Maximum Effort for the series finale of The Walking Dead. They created a series of ads for Autodesk, Deloitte, DoorDash, MNTN, and Ring, featuring four characters who died over the course of the show’s 11-season run. All five commercials were shot in two days.

Last year, the companies collaborated again, this time for a Groundhog Day-like campaign for Lay’s. That was a series of eight ads starring Stephen Tobolowsky, who played Ned in the 1993 comedy-film classic Groundhog Day, just trying to buy a bag of chips. The spots ran 75 times on the calendar’s Groundhog Day, taking up a third of ABC’s commercial inventory for the day, appearing during Good Morning America, General Hospital, Shark Tank, 20/20, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

Campbell says that the goal was to evolve the approach, this time with multiple brands, and on perhaps the biggest night of live-event TV outside of the Super Bowl. “It was really asking, how do we continue to push ourselves, to push the boundaries, and use the full platform of Disney in order to keep pushing these creative boundaries?” he says.

The Stunts

Chris Denison directed the Carnival spot and coordinated the stunts and cast every stunt performer across all six commercials. He’s performed stunts in films for Zac Efron, Jared Leto, and Ewan McGregor, as well as being Sam Worthington’s stunt double in James Cameron’s Avatar sequels.

Denison says that his first thought when he heard about this overall idea was, “Dude, don’t mess this up!”

“All kidding aside, when I first heard of the concept of a series of stunts-centric commercials geared toward paying homage to our profession, I was struck by a tremendous sense of responsibility, both to my peers and the legends of the business who came before us,” says Denison. “I knew instinctively that if the commercials that we produced were anything less than amazing, they would fall far short of the mission of honoring the overall stunt community. As a result, my team and I poured absolutely everything we had into this process.”

The biggest challenge from a stunt perspective was using the action to tell a meaningful story inside the boundaries of a 30-second spot. “I’m a firm believer that action should be a storytelling device; that is, all stunts should be used to drive a story forward, else you risk losing your connection with the audience,” says Denison. “The creative team and our fantastic directors did us so many favors in this regard, but we as a department had to be absolutely ruthless about distilling the action down to its core.”

He points to the Samsung “Fight” commercial. “Our first iteration of the fight was over a minute long,” says Denison. “With the help of our fearless fight coordinator, Steve Brown, we literally workshopped that thing for weeks, stripping out the proverbial shoe leather while highlighting the individual storytelling elements. I believe that the finished product is as compelling as a 30-second fight can get. This challenge persisted across each of the spots, and in every instance we put a hard focus on hyperefficient storytelling through cool action to create what we felt was the best result possible.”

What stands out to Denison about this advertising stunt is the sheer variety in the spots. From a massive drop off a 12-story office building and a practical skydive out of a helicopter over an ocean to precision-driving in a trophy truck out in the desert.

“Each spot is wildly different, and yet they all tell a broader story of what kind of content the stunt community is capable of producing,” says Denison. “It was incredibly fun getting to switch gears so rapidly and complete so many different action sequences in a short amount of time. As under the radar as stunt performers are used to flying, there are individuals within the stunt community whose names are even less well-known, and yet their work is absolutely everywhere on screen.”

Denison goes on to point out a few of the less-than-famous folks Oscars viewers will see. “Whether or not the audience recognizes this, I think it’s a very fun Easter egg that the boom operator in the ‘Fight’ commercial is a UFC Hall-of-Famer, the first assistant director in the Kiehl’s spot is an accomplished supercross racer, and the dude in the floatie in the Carnival Cruise ship pool is Hugh Jackman’s stunt double.”

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A Visionary Housing Project In Warumungu Country

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 19:00:51 +0000

A Visionary Housing Project In Warumungu Country

Housing

by Lucy Feagins, Editor

Dr Simon Quilty with Wilya Janta chair, Jimmy Frank Jupurrurla.

The Camfoo family’s Tennant Creek home has no mains power and no running water. Mattresses have been moved outside to escape the heat.

Diane Stokes Nampin outside her home on the edge of Tennant Creek. Diane’s home has no mains power or running water.

Simon Quilty, Norman Frank Jupurrurla and community members discussing site plans.

Tennant Creek is a town located on Warumungu Country in the Northern Territory, approximately 1000 kilometres south of Darwin, and 500 kilometres north of Alice Springs.

When the township was first established in the 1920s, the Warumungu people were forcibly relocated. They were finally allowed back into Tennant Creek in the 1970s, but by that time, their ancestral lands had been given to white pastoralists and miners, leaving the Warumungu to re-establish their communities within town camps on the town’s periphery. This story of systematic land theft and dispossession is shared by Aboriginal people in almost all remote communities in the Northern Territory.

Today, most Aboriginal people in Tennant Creek still reside in these town camp areas, occupying a mix of very basic, rundown dwellings built and owned by the state government.

The hot season runs from October to March, with an average daily temperature above 34°C. Despite this, most government homes in Tennant Creek fail abysmally in thermal performance and are totally devoid of cultural considerations.

There’s also a chronic lack of maintenance, often resulting in substandard sanitation.

The poor design of these homes makes them inefficient and expensive to run, and power outages are frequent. Perhaps most unbelievably, none of these homes have solar power.

As Dr Simon Quilty, a specialist who’s been working in remote NT since 2005, observes — these houses make people sick. Overheated homes with poor ventilation, coupled with overcrowding, have contributed to the highest rates of streptococcus, renal failure, and rheumatic heart disease in the world.

Simon is one of those people who has an infectious sense of optimism and a rare knack for getting things done. Having held various roles in hospitals and medical centres across the NT over the past 20 years, he’s worked with Elders in remote communities for much of his life, but his meeting with Warumungu Elder Norman ‘Norm’ Frank Jupurrurla was the start of a very special friendship.

Norm was Simon’s neighbour. ‘My partner and I were given this three-bedroom, architecturally-designed, beautiful little cottage that was air conditioned,’ Simon recalls of the home he rented while running the local medical clinic in Utopia, NT. ‘Norm was my neighbour… and his house was a tin shed.’

The house had a single power point, a tap outside — but no running water inside — and it didn’t have any insulation. ‘He was in there with his partner and five children’ Simon adds.

Landscape architect Steve Mintern of not-for-profit architecture firm OFFICE in discussion with Norm and other Tennant Creek community members

This eye-opening encounter started a lifelong friendship and sparked many conversations about housing, energy, health, and the ways in which they intersect — especially in remote communities. Together, the two men hashed out ideas for improving homes in Norm’s community, with Simon even spearheading a campaign to install solar panels on Norm’s tinshed roof.

After wading through red tape for more than two years, they finally did it — making Norm the first public housing tenant in the NT to get solar power.

Still, there was more to be done. Norm dreamt of building a better house for his family, and in Simon, he had found the perfect collaborator. A few years ago, he asked his friend to help him with this dream — that was the start of Wilya Janta.

Literally translated to ‘standing strong,’ Wilya Janta is an Aboriginal not-for-profit founded by Simon, Norm and other Warumungu community members and Elders that aims to facilitate the construction of better housing in Indigenous communities.

Aboriginal-led collaboration is central to Wilya Janta’s approach. Seeking to reinvent the current model for remote housing, Wilya Janta puts the tenant (or homeowner) at the centre of the design process, with the key goal of building culturally-appropriate homes that also stand up to the climate.

Norm’s house is the pilot project, or ‘Explain House,’ for this new housing model. It’s Simon’s ambitious hope that Norm’s house will become the exemplar for Wilya Janta, demonstrating that when Aboriginal people are involved in the design of their own homes, the results will be beautiful, functional, culturally safe, thermally efficient and climate resilient — ultimately leading to better community and health outcomes.

In 2022, after reading an article about Simon’s experience installing solar panels on Norm’s house, Melbourne-based architect Simon Robinson and landscape architect Steve Mintern of not-for-profit architecture firm OFFICE were inspired to reach out and offer their services. A month later, Simon invited the pair to Tennant Creek.

‘That first trip was just about listening and seeing,’ says Steve. ‘The biggest thing for us was to visit some of the Waramungu Elders’ houses and to see the poor living conditions. That was extremely confronting for us to see, firsthand, houses that didn’t have running water or electricity.’

Plans for Norm and Serena’s home prioritise culturally appropriate sleeping arrangements; bedheads facing east, bedends facing west. A fire pit to the east of the property is positioned to enable smoke to blow through and cleanse the home.

Simon and Steve have since visited Tennant Creek five times. Through forums involving the whole community and small design workshops, they have designed a beautiful home with Norm and his family. It’s been an iterative and highly collaborative process. So much so, the architects prefer to attribute the home’s design to Norm and his wife Serena, rather than take credit themselves.

‘They’re designing, we’re [just] helping them through the process,’ explains Simon.

Indeed, the Melbourne-based design team had a lot to learn from Norm and Serena. One key consideration was culturally appropriate spatial planning and sleeping arrangements.

‘Waramungu people sleep with their head to the east, feet to the west,’ Simon explains. ‘Norm says if you don’t sleep that way, you wake up crazy.’

There also needed to be multiple entries and exits to rooms to maintain Aboriginal avoidance practices, plus additional space to accommodate visitors for extended periods during cultural events and ceremony.

The design is therefore highly flexible, incorporating three bedrooms, two living spaces, and two kitchens — one internal and one external. Two large verandahs at the northern and southern ends of the house enable outdoor living and foster a greater connection to the landscape.

‘The focus for Norm and Serena is that it’s culturally appropriate first,’ Simon says. ‘Their idea of what a good house is [focuses on] how it supports culture for them, rather than it be a shiny thing… so we’re trying to embed it into a landscape and make it feel like it’s a part of the country.’

Another central design feature driven by Norm was the placement of a firepit to the east of the property — a request that initially had Simon and Steve baffled: ‘We knew there was a strong wind that would blow the smoke directly into the house, so we thought it was a poor design choice, but didn’t question it directly,’ recalls Steve.

Later, they learned the placement of the fire on the eastern side of the house would deliberately enable smoke to blow through the home and cleanse it of spirit. ‘It always comes out that Norm is always right!’ Steve says.

Although the design is complete, the house is yet to be built. It will be prefabricated in South Australia in modular sections and transported to site by truck. This approach is efficient, but also ensures the model can be replicated in the future.

The design for a second Wilya Janta home is already in the works, and the plan is to start rolling the model out more widely once the concept has been proven. In this way, Norm’s house is set to be a gamechanger not just for his family, but for future generations living in remote Indigenous communities.

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Ikiru Hotel: A Harmonious Fusion of Architecture and Nature

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 12:24:53 +0000

IDEOLOGIST has reimagined the Ikiru Hotel, a transformation that blends architectural refinement with nature’s inherent beauty. This project revitalizes a late-Soviet era resort, introducing a minimalist, Japanese-inspired aesthetic that seamlessly integrates with its surroundings.

The post Ikiru Hotel: A Harmonious Fusion of Architecture and Nature appeared first on Architecture Art Designs.

And the best movie posters of the year are . . .

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 10:45:00 +0000

The Oscars don’t have a Best Poster category. (Or even a Best Title Sequence category, which they did sort of have for the very first Academy Awards in 1929 before—for shame—dropping it in 1930.) So this year, as in the past, we asked some of our favorite poster designers which Best Picture nominee should win Best Poster.

Like book cover designers, key art creators are tasked with the unwieldy ask of distilling an entire universe of story into a single visual. It’s another standard of excellence in cinema—and we’d argue that there’s indeed correlation between great posters and great films. Consider: In our (admittedly wildly unscientific!) 2023 best poster poll, all participants nearly unanimously selected the off-the-wall treatments for the off-the-wall Everything Everywhere All At Once—which took home Best Picture. Last year, Vasilis Marmatakis’s unsurprisingly inventive posters for the unsurprisingly inventive Poor Things dominated—and the film subsequently nabbed Best Actress, Best Production Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Costume Design.

Beneath our water-cooler correlation lies another truth: When a designer utterly nails the brief and creates a poster that rises to a film’s artistic heights, it’s transcendent—and it often yields the singular image we’re left with in our minds long after leaving the theater.

Below, a panel of pros—Jay Bennett, who has worked with Netflix and others; Marie Bergeron, who has worked with Sony, Marvel, Ubisoft, and Warner Bros.; Tori Huynh, who has worked with the Criterion Collection, A24, HBO and more; and Eric Garza and Mitch Putnam, creative directors of pop culture and poster powerhouse Mutant—sound off on their picks for this year’s best Best Picture poster.

[Photo: A24]

“The most effective movie posters make you want to see the movie. A24’s one-sheet for The Brutalist delivers fully in this regard. Director Brady Corbet’s film epic is a bold and uncompromising work that celebrates minimalism and maximalism in equal measure. The poster supports that minimalist/maximalist approach with a design-forward layout that follows principles of Bauhaus and Brutalist design. The art challenges our expectations of traditional movie posters with its bold typography and asymmetrical layout, and is punctuated by an equally impactful visual of Lady Liberty turned on her head—signaling some of the film’s main themes. It’s not just an advert for the film, it feels like an extension of its worldview.” —Eric Garza

[Photo: MUBI]

“This one got my attention because of its simplicity, boldness, and because it says what it needs to say with very few elements. It’s [difficult to encapsulate a] story with only one image, and I always think that the best posters nail this part. Also, I’ve seen the film and it’s one of my favorites this year, so maybe [that’s why I chose it, too].” —Marie Bergeron

[Photo: MUBI]

“One of my favorite films of 2024 was The Substance. I love when horror films center the unimaginable dread of being a woman. Strange, sterile, and a pastel gore nightmare, I feel like the posters capture the bizarre icons within the film really well. What came first, the chicken or the egg? Or was the chicken modified, processed and fried beyond our comprehension [so] it is no longer recognizable from its original form? Summarizing all of these elements, and without showing Demi Moore’s face, no less, is such a bold choice. I also love the condensed typeface they used for the title and kept within the entirety of the film. From the look of the key art into the picture, I appreciate the commitment to consistency within the branding.” —Tori Huynh

[Photo: Focus Features]

“I have landed on the U.K. one-sheet for Conclave. I think it’s a bold approach for what is essentially a religious drama to lead with such a vibrant, thriller-esque palette, with the character arrangement creating a hint towards the split of the vote. The highlighted eye as Cardinal Lawrence’s main weapon in this conflict is a nice touch.” —Jay Bennett

[Photo: NEON]

“Many times, independent studios will try to push posters that feature big, loud graphic design or illustrative work to help their films stand out. That can be effective, but sometimes a simple piece of set photography is so perfect, it has to be used. Anora had my favorite poster of the year for exactly this reason. The photo screams youth, energy, love and euphoria, which is a hell of a lot to convey in one shot. The type perfectly complements the image and communicates everything necessary while also stepping back just enough so as to not compete for focal dominance. Uncomplicated in its design, this is one of those ‘I could’ve done that’ posters. But you probably couldn’t have.” —Mitch Putnam

Germany celebrates 25th anniversary of Bernd das Brot

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Forget SpongeBob SquarePants, Sesame Street, and the sourdough starter craze: a depressed German loaf of bread named Bernd das Brot is celebrating his 25th anniversary as the reluctant star of a children’s television program that accidentally became equally popular with adults.

A cult classic in Germany, Bernd das Brot (Bernd the Bread) is a puppet renowned for his deep, gloomy voice, his perpetual pessimism and his signature expression, “Mist!” (Think “crap!” in English.)

Played and voiced by puppeteer Jörg Teichgraeber, Bernd is a television presenter who wants nothing to do with TV and can’t wait to go home to stare at the wallpaper.

This year, his friends—a sheep and a flower bush—are urging him to become a bread influencer.

Bernd’s beginnings

Born as a sketch on the back of a napkin in a pizzeria, Bernd’s infamous grimace was drawn by Tommy Krappweis who modeled it after co-creator Norman Cöster’s face. The duo had been asked to come up with mascots for KiKA, a German children’s public television channel.

Comic artist Georg Graf von Westphalen designed Bernd as a pullman loaf—white bread typically sliced for sandwiches—with short arms and a permanent scowl. Bernd channels German stereotypes with his grumpy disposition, penchant for complaining and dry sense of humor and irony.

Bernd’s first episode aired on KiKA in 2000 alongside his more-optimistic pals, Chili the Sheep and Briegel the Bush.

A reluctant popularity

Because KiKA is a children’s channel, there was typically dead air from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. On January 1, 2003, the network put Bernd’s short episodes into the night loop for the first time.

The move brought an adult audience into Bernd’s world, often those sitting at home and smoking pot, or returning after a long night of partying. The night loop cemented his popularity as a German cult classic.

In 2004, Bernd won the Adolf Grimme Prize, the German television equivalent of an Emmy. The jury said he represents “the right to be in a bad mood.”

“Bernd shows you that you are less vulnerable with humor and self-irony. And perhaps the most important point is: It’s totally okay if you don’t feel well sometimes. That’s completely fine,” Krappweis, Bernd’s creator, said in a KiKA Q&A about Bernd’s anniversary.

Bernd’s broken heart

Bernd is depressed for a multitude of reasons, including his failed attempt to be the mascot for a bakery’s advertising campaign (that’s how he ended up as a TV presenter, as a last resort).

But it’s in Episode 85 that we finally learn about Bernd’s broken heart.

“A long, long time ago I fell in love with a beautiful, slim baguette. She was so incredibly charming and funny,” Bernd tells Chili and Briegel. “But unfortunately it was in vain.

“She only had eyes for this run-of-the-mill multigrain bread with its 10 types of grain. It was so depressing.”

The kidnapping

Despite Bernd’s best efforts—one of his catchphrases is “I would like to leave this show”—the episodes have never become stale. He sings, he dances, he’s been to space. He’s the star of merchandise, a video game, and headlines like “Give Us Our Daily Bernd.”

He was even kidnapped! In 2009, his 2-meter-tall (6.56 feet) statue was stolen from his traditional place outside the town hall in Erfurt, where KiKA is based.

A claim of responsibility surfaced on YouTube, by sympathizers of a group of demonstrators who were protesting a company that had produced cremation ovens for the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz. The demonstrators, however, denied involvement in Bernd’s kidnapping and the video was removed from the internet.

Bernd was held hostage for nearly two weeks before being discovered unharmed in an abandoned barracks.

The anniversary year

KiKA is honoring Bernd’s 25th anniversary, despite his complaints. New episodes, an update to his hit song, and online activities for kids and adults alike will be featured. The celebrations begin now, as Bernd’s birthday is February 29.

The latest series will premiere in September as Bernd, Chili, and Briegel launch the social media channel Better With Bernd in their efforts to make him into a bread influencer.

The trio will present inventions to make school, and life, easier for viewers, but naturally their concoctions backfire. Bernd instead becomes a defluencer—and an involuntary trendsetter.

—By Stefanie Dazio, Associated Press

AP journalist Kirsten Grieshaber contributed to this report.

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Inside the design of Monopoly’s new board game that ditches the banker for an app

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 15:00:00 +0000

An accepted fact of childhood: Monopoly is a slow game that requires consecutive snow days to successfully finish. And, by god, no matter what you do, do not end up as the banker, the most tedious and thankless of jobs.

[Photo: Hasbro]

Though they wouldn’t put it in those terms, the folks at Hasbro likely know that’s how a lot of players feel. So today the company is announcing a new set that bridges the gap between Monopoly Junior and the classic version for ages 8 and older—speeding things up by ditching the banker and paper currency entirely in favor of an app.

“Kids don’t carry cash these days . . . [but] they probably do have a mobile device,” says Brian Baker, SVP of board games at Hasbro, who adds that children are also observing a lot of tap-to-pay in the world. That led the team to consider how they could combine modern technology with intuitive behavior “to completely reinvent the experience,” Baker says.

[Photo: Hasbro]

Banking on App Banking

Monopoly turns 90 this year, and Monopoly App Banking officially hits stores in August. Though Hasbro has released a cashless version of the game before (the Monopoly Electronic Banking edition, which utilizes a calculator-looking device to help automate finances), this is the first time an app has been brought into the ecosystem.

Here’s how it works: After downloading the app, players put a smartphone or tablet into a stand—dubbed the “phone throne” in-house at Hasbro—and it stays there all game. Baker says the idea was to keep the focus on the board, rather than having to pass the phone around. Whereas board games like Monopoly usually involve combing through a dense list of instructions before playing (and eventually arguing over them), this box contains just some quick-reference cards.

The app kicks everything into gear quickly, directing players to select a token and its associated “credit card,” and snaps a photo of each player to indicate whose turn it is. Players roll physical dice, and then scan a QR code representing the space they’ve landed on. The app handles the property auctions and transactions and does all the basic accounting, speeding things up immensely—and provides a real-time leaderboard in a game whose player standings are often nebulous, lest everyone sit around and count money for five minutes.

Is Monopoly App Banking reductive to kids learning basic accounting skills the way many of us no doubt did via the classic game? Maybe. But to Baker’s earlier point, it’s hands-down more reflective of the online banking ecosystem we’re all accustomed to today, which runs on apps.

Another thing you’ll find in this version: an infusion of new life into old hubs like free parking, jail, and the railroads, thanks to built-in interactive mini games.

“There are some spaces where, if you land on them, nothing really happens,” Baker says. “And if you’re an 8-year-old kid, you can get bored really, really quickly.”

Take the railroads. When you land on one now, the app turns it into a high-speed train that brings the player on board; you tap your card to stop the train, and wherever it lands, that’s where you move.

[Photo: Hasbro]

Marvin Gardens vs. a Chocolate Factory

To young players, the new elements will likely feel organic; they’re not just gimmicks for gimmicks’ sake. Baker says that’s thanks to FunLab, Habsro’s in-house testing center in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The lab gives the company an opportunity to converse with players and their parents, as well as to observe how they interact with various concepts at the earliest stages of product development.

To wit: “I remember watching a mother struggling to put together Hungry Hungry Hippos out of the box—it comes in nine parts—while her child was screaming,” Baker says. “And the painful part of it was, after she finally got it together and they got to play, she had to take it apart to put it back in the box. It doesn’t fit back in. So I’m happy to report that the new Hungry Hungry Hippos requires no assembly out of the box, and when you’re done playing, it fits back in.”

In the case of Monopoly App Banking, Baker says the team needed to test and understand the role of the mobile device at the table—particularly because of the notion many people have that when a family is doing an activity together like playing a board game, smartphones should be put away.

“We really wanted to make sure that we used FunLab as a way to kind of validate the idea that we can use technology for good and not evil, and there is a place for a mobile device at the table if thoughtfully integrated,” he says.

Another place you can see FunLab’s work: the properties on the board.

“If you asked a kid, ‘Hey, what property would you dream of owning?’ I guarantee you they’re not going to say Marvin Gardens, right? They’re going to be like, ‘I want a chocolate factory’ or ‘I want to buy a time machine,’” Baker says. “It was really fun to just kind of take the guardrails off and let the kids guide us in the creation of this product.”

On the board you’ll find soccer fields and water parks, an infinite-pizza generator, and more. What you won’t find is anything an 8-year-old kid would deem too complicated, oversimplified, or unnecessary. Those kids, Baker says, “don’t pull any punches. They’ll tell you exactly what they think.”

[Photo: Hasbro]

The Sand Timer Test

Are apps the future of Monopoly, if not board games at large?

Baker says Hasbro has been trying to honor the boundary between tech that is intrusive and tech that is complementary. Take the standard board game sand timer. How many times have you nearly come to fisticuffs over someone cheating the clock with it?

“There are easier ways to do that, and the best technology sometimes is in your pocket,” Baker says. “A part of our innovation road map at Hasbro when it comes to board games is exploring new technology and then thoughtfully applying it to the experience.”

As for what the rest of this 90th-anniversary year holds for Monopoly, in January Hasbro announced expansion packs. And, according to Baker, the company plans to continue developing intellectual property partnerships, such as those that brought about the recent hit Pokémon and Harry Potter editions of the game. Monopoly is, after all, big business—and you wouldn’t want anyone getting bored with it. Especially younger kids.

“The Monopoly game is the biggest product that Hasbro sells,” Baker confirms. “I can say confidently that this is by far the most innovative version of Monopoly we’ve ever created. . . . We’re super proud of that.”

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A ‘Moby-Dick’-inspired opera opens at the Met

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000

When Leonard Foglia was invited to direct an opera based on Herman Melville’s masterpiece about a white whale, his first reaction was: “Moby-Dick. That’s great!”

“Then I ran to a used bookstore and got the book,” he recalled, “and I thought: Oh my God, what am I in for here? It’s so daunting. I didn’t panic, but I thought, How do we do this?”

How he and his collaborators did it will be on display at the Metropolitan Opera beginning March 3. The opera is composed by Jake Heggie to a libretto crafted by Gene Scheer.

To begin with, Scheer had to whittle a novel of more than 600 pages down to a 64-page libretto. He kept as much of Melville’s language as possible, and estimates that 40% to 50% of his libretto can be found in the original text, though he often tweaked the phrasing to make it more singable.

Heggie and his initial partner, Terrence McNally (who withdrew for health reasons), had already decided to lop off the opening chapters, which take place on land. They set the entire opera aboard the whale-hunting ship Pequod.

Another crucial change was renaming the narrator, calling him Greenhorn to reflect his status as a novice aboard the ship. Now the book’s famous opening line, “Call me Ishmael,” is transposed to the very end of the opera when the character has matured.

“In the novel, Ishmael is telling a story that happened many years ago,” Scheer said. “But in the theater, you want to see it happen in real time. . . . We’re watching him take in all the experiences so that when he says ‘Call me Ishmael,’ he’s ready to write the book. In essence, this opera is the education of Ishmael.”

Tenor Stephen Costello, who is performing the role for the fifth time and is the lone cast holdover from the Dallas premiere in 2010, sees his character as “the only one who really has an arc.”

“He goes on the Pequod because there was nothing for him on land,” Costello said. “So he’s either going to die at sea or figure out who he is.”

In addition to Costello, the Met cast includes tenor Brandon Jovanovich as the vengeance-obsessed Captain Ahab. Pip, his cabin boy, is written as a “trousers role” (a male character portrayed by a woman) and will be sung by soprano Janai Brugger. Starbuck, the first mate, will be baritone Peter Mattei, and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green will sing the part of Queequeg. Karen Kamensek conducts the eight performances through March 29.

The opera, commissioned to celebrate the opening of a new opera house in Dallas, has been a success from the beginning, drawing praise from audiences and critics—and even scholars.

Bob Wallace, a professor at Northern Kentucky University and past president of the Melville Society, admired the opera so much that he wrote a book about its creation.

“Scheer and Heggie did a brilliant job of shrinking the novel to make it fit the stage and yet preserve so much of the essence of it,” he said in an interview.

As much as critics admired Scheer’s adaptation and Heggie’s tuneful, atmospheric, and at times gripping score, they lavished special praise on the physical production, with sets by Robert Brill and projections by Elaine J. McCarthy.

The action, Steve Smith wrote in The New York Times, “played out against a multimedia-enriched staging that ranged from striking to near-miraculous.”

Perhaps the most stunning effect is the way animated projections superimposed on a climbing wall that is curved a bit like a skateboard ramp create the illusion of the crew leaving the Pequod to board three whaling boats.

“A lot of the excitement and thrill of watching this is due to the work of the production team,” Scheer said. “Lenny kept saying to me, ’You imagine it the way you want it, and let me figure out how to do it.’”

That often involved imposing unusual physical demands on the singers. For instance, when Pip gets lost at sea, his character sings the equivalent of an operatic mad scene dangling high above the stage, with projections making it appear he’s treading water.

“I said to Janai when we first rehearsed it,” Foglia recalled, “‘Okay, you can just get mad at me now, because you have to sing your hardest aria hanging from not even a full harness, just a single wire.’”

In addition, Queequeg and Greenhorn climb up and down ladders to sing at the top of the mastheads. Ahab, who has lost a leg in a prior encounter with Moby-Dick, has to hobble on a wooden prosthesis. And Greenhorn—finally named Ishmael—ends the opera grabbing onto a whale hook from a passing ship that lifts him to safety.

“I joke with them that everything opera singers count on in life—having both feet planted on the ground—I’ve taken away from them,” Foglia said.

—By Mike Silverman, Associated Press

This story was first published February 26, 2025. It was updated on February 28, 2025, to correct the name of Northern Kentucky University.

20 Amazon Finds that Will Make Your Kitchen the Envy of Your Friends

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 09:55:00 +0000

The kitchen is the hub of the home—the most used room where friends and family gather, cooking takes place, and messes are made. Whether you have a small or large kitchen, keeping it well-functioning and organized is a tough task. To simplify your job and make your kitchen the envy of your friends, we’ve rounded up the top 20 Amazon kitchen finds.

Delamu Acrylic Stackable Pantry Organizers with Lid

If you’ve ever accidentally left a bag of potatoes or onions in a cabinet for too long, these acrylic organizers are what you need. They come in a pack of two and are 12 inches deep, perfect for holding onions or potatoes in the pantry and keeping them in sight. The bamboo lids offer a natural look and make these bins conveniently stackable.

YouCopia Adjustable Drawer Tray

No more rooting through drawers to find the kitchen utensil you need—instead, install this drawer organizer with adjustable slots to hold measuring spoons, measuring cups, and other cooking essentials. It’s made with BPA-free, high-quality plastic and is easy to clean.

Cliik Clear Stackable Magnetic Jars

Make your pantry the envy of all your friends with these clear organizer jars. They feature magnetic lids, ensuring they take up the least amount of space as possible. They’re the perfect size for holding cereal, chips, or cookies and come with customizable labels.

Brimley Bamboo Wooden Cutting Board

This anti-slip cutting board comes with a built-in slot for the included food prep containers. Simply cut up your fruits or veggies on the tray and add them to the containers for easy meal prep. While you’ll need to hand wash the cutting board, the food prep containers are dishwasher safe.

Valley Hike Meal Prep Kitchen Station

Meal prepping on a weekend makes the rest of the week run much smoother. If you’re looking to streamline your meal prep process, check out this station, which includes a cutter with interchangeable blades, portioned cups, reusable meal prep containers, a cutting board, vegetable slicers, and so much more.

DUCOO Bamboo Drawer Dividers

These bamboo adjustable drawer organizers are perfect for creating zones within drawers. You can use them anywhere—from the junk drawer to your silverware drawer. They come in five colors to match any kitchen aesthetic.

LIFETOWE Wooden Trivets for Hot Dishes

No more searching for a pot holder before laying down a hot dish. These wooden trivets can support your hot dishes, but best of all, they double as kitchen decor. When placed on their stand, these kitchen tools resemble a wooden tree.

SONGMICS Dish Drying Rack

This dish-drying rack is elite if you prefer to hand wash your dishes (or have to). Its tiered design provides plenty of space to house plates, cups, silverware, and wine glasses. It’s crafted from fingerprint-resistant stainless steel and comes in two colors: silver and gray or silver and black.

Caraway Nonstick Bakeware Set

If your baking sheets have seen better days, consider replacing them with this set from Caraway. These nonstick ceramic cookware pieces include baking sheets, loaf pans, cake pans, a muffin pan, and a rack. The set is available in multiple color options.

Joseph Pullout Spice Rack Organizer

Save space and keep your spices organized with this space rack that installs under a shelf. It features a pullout drawer, making it easy to grab what you need without taking up precious cabinet space.

CKIU Under the Cabinet Paper Plant Dispenser

Save valuable counter space with this under the cabinet paper plate dispenser made from bamboo. It offers a drill-free installation and can be mounted under any cabinet using the supplied adhesive tape. It comes in two colors: natural and white.

Ledoor Food Bag Clips with Pour Spouts

If you or your kids often forget to secure chip clips, this product is for you. These food bag clips keep your food fresh while providing an easy-to-pour spot. You don’t have to worry about removing these until you’re finished with your food bag.

Comellow Bamboo Cutting Board with Graters

Cut, grate, and contain with this bamboo set from Comellow. It features four pullout containers and four graters, making it easy to prep vegetables for the week—the top doubles as a convenient cutting board.

YXYL Stretch and Seal

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Here’s why AG1’s CEO is envisioning the DTC supplement on store shelves

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 21:00:00 +0000

Dek: The health supplement company counts investors like Lewis Hamilton and Alex Honnold.

Kat Cole is no stranger to a career pivot. At Hooters, she went from waitress to vice president as she worked her way up the restaurant chain’s corporate ladder. Then, over the course of more than 10 years at Cinnabon parent Focus Brands, she built a career selling sweet treats to consumers.

In 2024, Cole made the leap from selling fast food to health supplements by becoming CEO of AG1 (formerly known as Athletic Greens), which sells a green multivitamin and nutrient powder.

Valued at $1.2 billion in 2022, AG1 has been endorsed by athletes like Olympic runner Allyson Felix and Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, as well as an endless roster of wellness and fitness influencers. (Some doctors have questioned the need for supplements like multivitamins altogether).

Cole spoke to Most Innovative Companies host Yasmin Gagne about growing AG1’s business, the brand’s Ozempic opportunity, and whether she thinks it will ever end up in the grocery aisles.

Listen to our conversation with Cole and a segment with Ankler Awards Editor and Prestige Junkie host Katey Rich, who explains how studios have conducted their Oscar campaigns this year.

How does a former fast food executive come to run a health company?

There’s a few ways to look at this. One is just the journey that I’ve gone on as a woman, as a mom, and over time how nutrition and health has become more important to me personally. We’re also so much more informed now. Even people who are in their thirties are thinking of healthspan and nutrition. There are things, like my mom getting breast cancer when my kids were very small and she was starting her business, or when I had my kids at 39 and 41 after a few miscarriages in between, that put nutrition and health more squarely in my focus as an individual. Health also became a bigger part of one where I believe consumers were going and therefore what the market opportunity and business would be. I am also a leader experienced running companies at scale, and 10 years ago there weren’t a lot of scaled healthful nutrition companies that made sense for someone like me to manage. Now AG1 is big enough for me to come in and lead this chapter.

Do you have any guilty pleasures?

I used to say everything in moderation. Now I think that phrase, in some cases, has been used to the extreme where in aggregate, a few things in moderation are no longer moderation. I think very seriously about what my kids see me eat and how we make decisions when I treat myself. But I am a human, not a robot. I treat myself once in a while with an ice cream or a cookie—I have a 5 and a 7-year-old

During COVID, sales of multivitamins and supplements in general increased by 50% between 2018 and 2022. AG1 is 15 years old—how do you compete with the explosion of newer brands in the sector?

In any market, the presence of growth and competition is an indicator of consumer demand. So as it relates to health and wellness, if there are more consumers demanding more options, then that means those consumers are going on a health awareness journey. As a businessperson, that means I’m in the right space. That said, consumers have more options. It can get tougher to appreciate the distinction between those options.

So when I think about the things that are required to stand out today that may not have been on customer’s minds as much 10 years ago. That’s things like human clinical trials and research for supplements that is not required of the industry, but is what we have invested in for years. I think about third-party certifications—we’ve been NSF[-certified] for sport for eight or nine years, which is a third-party certification that not only verifies that what’s on the label is in the product, it also ensures there are no contaminants or doping agents. We pay a third party to keep our product all the way through the supply chain in check. Those are things we’ve always done, but years ago we actually didn’t brag about it. We didn’t market it because there was so much demand. Now we are showing proof of the third party studies we do. It’s a different approach to education information and go to market.

I was surprised to find out there’s an even gender split among AG1 customers. I was surprised because I assumed that most would be men into biohacking.

I assumed that as well when I was an early customer. I thought I was this outlier lady. Once I got into the business and saw the demographic split, I wanted to accelerate that shift to a more female customer base. When I joined, it was like 40% or trending that way, and now it’s 50-50. One reason [for your misconception] might be that some of our more popular creator partners thought leaders, academics, people with big podcasts, or platforms were male. The reality is women—and this has been accelerated by COVID—want to live long and strong. It’s not about being frail or delicate, it’s about fuel, it’s about strength, it’s about power and nutrition.

What I see in our customers is the fastest growing customer group by age is 45-plus. As we get older, we age into new reasons to need to supplement and want to supplement an already healthy lifestyle, and there are new ways to afford a premium product.

Our younger consumers tend to be athletes and fitness enthusiasts who really value their nutrition and take it more seriously. That has evolved over time. Then I started interviewing our customers, our female customers in particular, in the early years when I joined. What I found is they had heard about it from a partner, a trainer, a physician. Their recommender tended to be male in those earlier years. But then they didn’t have as many options being marketed to them as we have now.

Now we’re in an interesting space where our split is 50-50 both for existing customers and new ones joining us, but women in particular are so marketed to in this space. It’s confusing. It’s difficult to know what to trust, and we have so many distinct life stages, from pre and postnatal, perimenopausal, menopausal, postmenopausal. There’s a lot of support that can come from nutraceuticals or nutrients to help with those life stages. So now the job we need to do for our female customers is being really clear where we fit into their stack and explain why they should trust AG1 in the confusing landscape of supplements.

At Focus Brands, you brought brands like Cinnabon to different sections of the grocery aisle, with products stocked in the snacks section, and the frozen food section, for instance. Are you going to bring the same playbook to AG1?

The core AG1 is this daily health drink in a powder form that people mix on their own in water or put in their smoothies. Retailers love this idea. It’s a very straightforward supply chain. It’s shelf-stable in its packaging, and there is built-in demand that is not necessarily being fully realized by the e-commerce platform. So retailers love the idea of a brand people know but haven’t yet tried. There’s brand awareness, product fit, and the format makes sense. You can imagine some retailers that have a heavy inclination toward sampling and education and letting people try and learn about a product before they buy. That’s the opposite of our current model. If you hear about it and you go online, the best value is to subscribe. So you’re actually subscribing before you try retail. Some of the retailers can help us reach a customer that we haven’t been able to reach.

AG1’s valuation—$1.2 billion—is a huge number for a CPG company. And I think we’ve seen a lot of CPG companies struggle to live up to that kind of valuation. You have investors, including Lewis Hamilton and Alex Honnold, who are probably curious when they’re going to see a return. Is the company ever going public?

I won’t speak to what the particular outcome is. That valuation was on $160 million in revenue we did that year. January 2022 was peak market fervor, there was a lot of froth. However larger marquee investors who came to the table are supersmart. They saw the fundamentals of the business. We were $160 million in revenue that year, growing at hundreds of percent with an incredible body of opportunity in front of the business. So if you look at what’s happened since then, we were at $160 million at the end of 2021, we’re projecting $600 million in revenue now. We’ve well over 3X the business. So even if valuations have come down to earth a bit, the business has grown unbelievably. And so our investors are very happy.

Do you plan on launching more AG1 products?

Our customers have asked us to launch so many things, but if we did it, it would create confusion. AG1 is foundational nutrition. It’s this idea that first and foremost, the best driver of health from a nutrition perspective is whole foods. Then this idea of something called a foundational nutrition layer, which essentially is nutrients and gut health support. Foundational nutrition is an idea that there is such a thing as a group of supplements that help most people cover many [health] gaps. It’s like the future of what the multivitamin was supposed to be, except no one takes a multivitamin and says, “my digestion’s better.” No one takes a multivitamin and says, “I feel more energy.” But they do with AG1 because it’s more comprehensive. This idea of having a foundational routine is the base of the business. As we innovate products, the question is: what do our customers need from us? And I’ll just give you a few examples. Might they be at different life stages? You can imagine what some of those might be that emulate some of the journey multivitamins.

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How Oscar-nominated screenwriters navigate authenticity in cultural and linguistic storytelling

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 20:00:40 +0000

The 2025 slate of Oscar nominees recognizes many writers, directors and actors whose scripts and performances don’t necessarily reflect their own cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley, both white, co-wrote “Sing Sing,” a story about rehabilitation through art in a maximum security prison where the characters are almost entirely people of color.

Meg LeFauve has now earned her second nomination for penning a script that gives voice the gamut of emotions surging through a young girl in “Inside Out 2.” She’s in her 50s.

The director of “Conclave,” Edward Berger, its writer, Peter Straughan, and its lead actor, Ralph Fiennes, are all self-proclaimed lapsed Catholics. Yet they brought to life a political thriller set in the Vatican.

“The Brutalist” was written entirely in English, but much of the film’s dialogue is in Hungarian, with two leads who are not native Hungarian speakers.

Most screenwriters endeavor to craft characters outside their own backgrounds and experiences. But concerns about authentic language representation and cultural accuracy persist, and accusations of cultural appropriation and lazy research are commonplace.

“Emilia Pérez,” for example, has been heavily criticized not only for unrealistic portrayals of gender transition but also for inauthentic depictions of Mexican culture and accents.

The film’s director, Jacques Audiard, has even claimed his lack of knowledge of Spanish has been an artistic benefit. He says it gives him “a quality of detachment” to emphasize “emotion” rather than “focus too strongly on the accent, the punctuation.”

His lack of interest in precise depictions of language and culture contrasts sharply with our recent research, which shows ample interest from practicing screenwriters in accurately representing dialects and accents in scripts.

Wanting to get it right

We surveyed over 50 current members of the Writers Guild of America, and they broadly told us that sensitivity to linguistic representation has increased since the 2010s.

Several commented that there’s been more commitment to hiring writers who represent the characters’ voices and backgrounds. There’s also more “freedom to include diverse characters and worlds… but a commensurate emphasis on authenticity and a higher bar for what that means,” as one writer explained.

“Authenticity” was consistently cited in our survey as a principal consideration when writing dialogue. Other concerns included scripts’ intelligibility, historical accuracy and believability.

In most cases, screenwriters aspire to write dialogue that sounds authentic. But it’s not easy – and often requires collaboration to get it right. Writers noted how they’ll adjust their dialogue based on production needs, such as budgetary concerns, input from actors and directors, and feedback from dialect coaches and historical consultants.

For example, spec scripts – or noncommissioned film scripts – are written before any casting or production decisions are made. The dialogue in these scripts will likely change once actors and other creatives are attached to the project.

Recipes for capturing linguistic nuance

In our study, we also reviewed screenwriting manuals published as far back as 1946.

Manuals didn’t begin to raise explicit ethical concerns, such as the use of inaccurate linguistic stereotypes in dialogue, until the 1980s. For example, many older films, such as “Gone with the Wind,” often used phonetic spelling in their scripts, with features such as g-dropping – “quittin’” for “quitting” – to mark only the speech of lower-class or racially marginalized characters, despite the fact that all people, regardless of background, have accents.

Writing in heavy phonetics is generally discouraged in modern screenwriting.

There are practical reasons for this. Scripts are read before they’re seen and therefore must first appeal to the not so general audience of executives who buy them. As one writer explained, “My script is targeted towards them.”

Take “Trainspotting.” Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel about a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh was written with heavy phonetics to capture the characters’ Scottish dialect: “ah wouldnae git tae watch it.” But the screenplay uses lines without phonetics, such as, “I wouldn’t have bothered.”

In this respect, there’s a notable difference in novels and their respective adaptations. One surveyed writer avoids dialectal markers and will “default to standard American English unless there is a reason not to.”

That doesn’t mean the actors in “Trainspotting” should speak in an American English accent. Instead, screenwriters might simply indicate the use of language and dialect when describing the scene in a script or, as one surveyed screenwriter explained, “make a note in the parenthetical that ‘Brynn speaks with a heavy West Virginia accent’” to flag the work that “the actor, dialogue coach, and writer will need to do together.”

This method is employed in “The Brutalist.” The film is partly in Hungarian, but writer and director Brady Corbet and his Norwegian co-writer, Mona Fastvold, wrote the Hungarian dialogue in standard English. They then used parentheticals to indicate any non-English delivery of dialogue. The film’s stars, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, worked with a dialect coach to hone their accents.

“Anora,” which tells the story of an exotic dancer in a whirlwind romance, features characters who speak Russian, Armenian and English with varying degrees of fluency. Even though the characters frequently switch between these languages, the entire script is in unbroken English. Code-switching is simply marked with “Russian,” “Armenian” or “English” in the script before a piece of dialogue.

But limiting oneself to standard U.S. English restricts diversity in the written dialogue itself. Some writers may want to use dialect or language to convey character authenticity on the page.

Our survey respondents described this as “flavor” – the strategic use of dialectal words or phrases to create distinct voices, with limited phonetics. Jesse Eisenberg, in his Oscar-nominated script “A Real Pain,” lightly blends American English with occasional Yiddish words to great effect: “… landed in Galveston for some fakakta reason,” or “crazy” reason.

AI chimes in

Attempts at authenticity can become muddied when AI gets involved.

When making “The Brutalist,” Corbet controversially used AI technology to refine the movie’s Hungarian dialogue.

Some questioned the film’s authenticity due to the use of AI, arguing that nothing can be authentic if it’s achieved artificially.

But the film’s creators, including editor and native Hungarian speaker Dávid Jancsó, defended this choice. They argued the technology actually enhanced the language’s authenticity, particularly since Hungarian’s system of vowels and consonants is especially hard for nonnative speakers to capture accurately.

Whether writers use phonetics or standard language, and whether producers use AI or dialect coaches, questions of ethics and linguistic authenticity will remain. It’s important to research language choices and dialogue, and to consult the diverse speakers portrayed in scripts.

These are among the many essential checks and balances that are becoming bigger parts of the filmmaking process.

Chris C. Palmer is a professor of English at Kennesaw State University.

Mitchell Olson is an associate professor of screen and TV writing at Kennesaw State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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On The Market: A Vine-Covered Victorian Home With A Contemporary Edge

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 19:00:13 +0000

On The Market: A Vine-Covered Victorian Home With A Contemporary Edge

On The Market

by Lucy Feagins, Editor

A contemporary renovation by Therefore Studio has turned this home into an inner-city oasis.

The kitchen and living zones open to a lush central courtyard.

A palette of concrete, timber and steel accents gives this home a sleek, contemporary edge.

The master suite features distinctive Venetian plaster walls.

The upstairs deck is the perfect parents’ retreat.

The distinctive facade of the home is covered in creeping ficus.

This much-loved Richmond home is on the market for only the second time in 80 years.

Originally built in 1888 as a tin shop, the double-fronted Victorian residence has been carefully reimagined by current owners Bree Johnson and Steve Rowley into a modern Australian masterpiece — without losing its rich heritage charm.

Bree, co-founder of Frank Body and managing partner at Willow & Blake, and Steve, CEO of Frank Body, first fell in love with the property’s vine-covered facade.

‘It’s an iconic Richmond house,’ says Bree. ‘I used to drive past and sometimes park outside. So when it popped up for sale, I jumped instantly.’

After securing the home in 2016, the couple spent two years planning their dream renovation with Therefore Studio and Loc Build.

The results are spectacular. The original facade remains intact, while the rear extension offers a striking contrast — an airy, contemporary space designed for family living.

‘We basically rebuilt everything past the facade,’ Bree explains.

The interiors are a considered blend of heritage and modernity, featuring sand-coloured Petersen Roman bricks, Venetian plaster beeswax walls, and off-form concrete ceilings. Natural materials were paramount, creating a home that feels both luxurious and timeless.

Light is a standout feature, flooding the home through carefully positioned windows and skylights. Bree particularly loves the bespoke light fittings, which add warmth and texture to the clean architectural lines.

Beyond aesthetics, this home is an urban sanctuary.

‘Richmond is energetic and bustling, but you drive into the rear garage and enter a quiet, green world’ Bree says. The leafy courtyard has played host to countless long lunches, while the upstairs deck is a favourite retreat for quiet evenings.

The location is unbeatable, with some of Melbourne’s best restaurants, cafes, and parks just a short walk away.

‘This pocket of Richmond is very community-driven. I walk everywhere and say hello to three people on my way to drop the kids off at kinder’ Bree shares.

After nearly a decade in the home, Bree and Steve’s growing family has led them to an exciting new project, making this a rare opportunity for a new owner to step into a home that seamlessly blends history, modern design, and lifestyle.

This truly special residence won’t stay on the market for long.

167 Brighton Street, Richmond is listed with David Sciola from Jellis Craig. Expressions of interest close Tuesday 25 March at 12pm.

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Core77 Weekly Roundup (2-24-25 to 2-28-25)

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 18:36:15 +0000

Here's what we looked at this week:

Fellow Products channels Dieter Rams' design approach.

1X shows off NEO Gamma, their domestic servant robot. This is surely the beginning of the end.

Phaidon's forthcoming "Mid-Century Modern Designers" book covers 300 designers and goes way beyond furniture.

The Cuboid: A compact, designey power strip by new Swedish design brand Kord.

Helix: One AI brain controlling multiple robots.

Believe it or not, with Eskimo Design's Modernist towel heater, form follows function.

A brilliant design for a trailer that unloads the material for you.

This IQ Vise can hold anything in any position.

Sigma's minimalist, ultra lightweight BF camera is unibody, being milled out of a single block of aluminum.

Tech furniture: A stool that provides haptic feedback for musicians. Useful, or gimmick?

An unusual barbecue object from Japan: This mesh frying pan lets you cook rice and noodles over an open flame.

ColorPipes: Lightweight inflatable lighting, now with programmable colors.

A brief history of the briefcase, and a comeback version by Toyo Steel.

Industrial Design student work: Turning discarded carpet into comfortable furniture.

Choppy, by Latvian design brand Stum, is a bent plywood children's bicycle.

Why van racking company Sortimo made an automatic door.

Studio Ololoo's surprising Bubble Stool.

Humanscale's Float Micro is a minimalist, height-adjustable offset-leg cantilevered side table.

Industrial design firm Spitfire explains: "How to Develop a Product."

The Best DIYs and Decorating Ideas of February 2025

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 17:06:35 +0000

February 2025 was full of great DIY projects and ideas for updating living spaces. In this collection, we share our top posts of the month, featuring DIYs and creative decorating projects. We’re excited to see what the rest of the year will bring! Got an old metal mug lying around? Turn it into a sleek, wall-mounted concrete planter! With just a pizza box as a mold and a simple mix of cement and sand, you can craft a unique piece of decor that adds a fresh, modern vibe to your space. Easy, budget-friendly, and a perfect way to upcycle! DIY Concrete Wall Planter: Upcycling Old Mug Struggling with a small bedroom? I’ve been there! The secret is using vertical space—think floating shelves, wall-mounted nightstands, and over-the-door organizers. Adding shelves above the bed or around doorways keeps essentials handy without crowding the room. Small changes, big difference! 45 Functional Vertical Bedroom Storage Ideas Got an empty wine bottle? Turn it into a chic concrete vase! Just wrap it in plastic, mix cement with sand, and pour in layers for a stylish gradient effect. Let it cure, unmold, and...

The post The Best DIYs and Decorating Ideas of February 2025 appeared first on Shelterness.

Industrial Design Firm Explains: "How to Develop a Product"

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 16:50:51 +0000

Brooklyn-based Spitfire Industry is a consultancy founded by industrial designer Isis Shiffer. The firm has worked across every category an ID firm might be called on for: Product, lighting, medical, wellness, toys, packaging, luggage, vehicle interiors, you name it. With plenty of experience across the board, the company has written the following helpful guide for would-be product entrepreneurs.

How to Develop a Product

A lot has to happen between conception and production, as no product springs into existence fully formed (and we would be out of a job if they did). While some designs are complex and tech-heavy and others exist only to be beautiful, the design process is essentially the same: building the visual language, ideation, refinement, CAD, prototyping, and factory prep. We use a step-by-step process with clear objectives and deliverables, which allows our clients to follow along and keeps everyone on track.

The following case study uses our Bask Lamp, which is both a technical lighting device and a décor piece. The client had already completed their market research, so we were able to jump right into the design.

WHAT'S THE BRIEF?

All projects start with a brief, or a document that outlines the core requirements for the product. These can be long and technical or short and pithy, but they need to be clear. Sometimes clients come with a brief fully prepared, sometimes we study the market and create one ourselves. This project only needed a short one:

Create eycatching sunlamps that function as statement décor and are unlike anything else on the market. They must produce 10,000 lumens (standard for therapy lamps), not overheat, throw light at a 45 degree angle, and be manufacturable for ~$10. They should be easily injection molded and compatible with OEM components. The plastic body must be fully recyclable.

CREATING A BRAND OUTLINE

When we create the first product for a new brand, we need to build from the ground up. Establishing a visual language of shapes, colors, lifestyle and overall 'feel' at the very beginning is key. We'll refer back to this throughout the project and it will inform the product, packaging, and graphic design and keep everything consistent.

Bask had no prior brand assets in place, so we started by defining an overall mood. Using four cities as aesthetic shorthand, we created four very different visual directions that would all be consistent with the brief. The clients decided to go with MIAMI- a more colorful look than we generally select, and a fun challenge.

PRODUCT DETAILS

Once the general aesthetic is locked in, we pull out some key design language elements that will inform the new product. In this case, it was hot colors, clean lines, and illusionistic colorblock visuals. We created some more specific inspiration boards showing these elements in contexts that struck an appropriate tone of sophisticated fun and avoided looking too childish or simple.

ROUGH SKETCHES

Finally, we can begin to design! Quick ideation sketches help us picture how the product could look and behave, identify strong directions and discard weak ones. We rarely share these rough-and-ready drawings outside the team. The ones below are heavily tidied up.

DETAILED SKETCHES

Once we've selected some strong concepts we flesh them out with color and detail. At this stage we also start thinking about how each concept would be manufactured— there's no point in designing something that cannot work in the physical world. It can be helpful to divide concepts into a few basic directions to aid selection. We talk these over with the clients and conduct user surveys to identify the most viable direction(s). This is a stage where brutal editing is necessary- if we kept every feature we thought was nifty we'd never complete any projects. Good ideas that aren't used immediately are filed away for future inspiration.

3D SKETCHES

As the project progresses, we move into the 3D realm. The most viable concepts are mocked up in CAD so we can review them from multiple angles. Visuals are refined, space made for electronic components, and OEM parts selected. We begin building out any user experience details and selecting colors and patterns.

DESIGN FINALIZATION

When we and the clients agree that the design is visually finished, we create fully detailed CAD models. These can be rendered in 2D for review and promotional purposes, as well as 3D printed for a final design check. In this case, the client had an established supply chain and their production partner took care of prototypes. Sometimes we do them in house or work with a local prototyper.

Design for production

When the design is complete and approved by both us and the client it's time for production. We create a spec pack that includes: an overview 'cheat sheet', a detailed CAD model, a bill of materials, color codes, and anything else necessary to communicate the design to the manufacturing partner. For this lamp, most of the electronic components were available as OEM -original equipment manufacturer- and did not need to be made custom. This is a great option for many products and saves a lot of production cost, but some more cutting-edge items need custom componentry.

Production models and testing

After sending the detailed specifications to a factory, we coordinate with them to sort out any issues. Often some elements can be modified to streamline the production process or lower the per unit cost, and we work with the factory engineers to make sure the product is being made as efficiently as possible. The factory then sends us a production model - a prototype that looks and works exactly like the final product. We review the production model for any discrepancies and send along feedback. It's rare we need more than two rounds to hit approval, but complex products occasionally take more.

Final product

Once the production model is approved, a tool is cut and production begins! We make sure the client has all the resources they need to work with the supplier and then our work is done. Of course, we are always available for support. We love watching our client's products enter the market and try to keep track of all of them.

You can see Spitfire Industry's work here.

Humanscale's Minimalist, Height-Adjustable Offset-Leg Cantilevered Side Table

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 16:50:51 +0000

We've seen offset-leg cantilevered side tables before, but Humanscale's Float Micro offers a trick that many don't: Height adjustability.

The leg presumably contains a spring or hydraulic piston, as the unit is unpowered.

The base is available in a flat Glide version or up on locking casters.

The company says the base is powder-coated, but doesn't mention what the underlying metal is. The tabletops are available in three options: "Powder-coated paint," bamboo, and what they're calling "Natural Linoleum: A naturally durable surface made from bio-based materials, offering wear resistance, antistatic properties, and a matte finish that minimizes fingerprints while maintaining a refined aesthetic."

The Float Micro starts at $794 for the painted version, with the linoleum options creeping up to $1,032 apiece. Prices for the bamboo option were not listed at press time.

A Stool with a Surprising Seat

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 16:50:51 +0000

This surprising Bubble Stool is by Studio Ololoo, a Ningbo, China-based design firm. At first glance it appears to be aluminum, and it might take you a second to spot the unusual seat:

The stool is in fact made of painted wood. The captured, inflated seat is made from thermoplastic polyurethane, a material that splits the difference between rubber and plastic.

"This stool is inspired by children game of blowing bubbles. The inflated TPU air bag is fixed in the seat, and is squeezed by the irregular wooden ring to form an organic bubble-shaped seat cushion. All the screws of the stool are cleverly hidden in the internal structure, and users can't help but wonder how the airbag is installed."

"It is comfortable and supportive, reminding users of the feeling of sitting on their parents' laps in childhood."

At press time the Bubble Stool had been prototyped, but no production plans had been announced.

3D software company Autodesk announces 9% cuts to workforce

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 13:44:25 +0000

Autodesk forecast annual revenue and profit above Wall Street estimates on Thursday, boosted by strong demand for its design and engineering software across industries such as construction and manufacturing.

The company also said it would reduce its workforce by about 9%, representing roughly 1,350 employees, and laid out plans to invest more heavily in cloud and artificial intelligence, adding that it would reallocate resources towards those areas.

Companies across sectors such as architecture, engineering, construction, and product design are making extensive use of Autodesk’s 3D design solutions, with the software maker’s artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities further driving spending on its products.

Autodesk saw a 23% jump in total billings to $2.11 billion in the fourth quarter ended January 31.

The company’s international operations have particularly shown strength, while analysts have also noted that the company was outpacing peers in the manufacturing sector, driven by the performance of its “Fusion” design software.

Shares of the San Francisco, California-based company were up about 2% in extended trading.

Autodesk expects full-year revenue between $6.90 billion and $6.97 billion, largely above analysts’ average estimate of $6.90 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

It projected an adjusted profit between $9.34 and $9.67 per share for its fiscal year 2026, also above the $9.24 per share estimated by analysts.

The company reported total revenue of $1.64 billion in the fourth quarter, up 12% from last year and above analysts’ average estimate of $1.63 billion. It posted an adjusted profit of $2.29 per share, beating estimates of $2.14 per share.

—Deborah Sophia, Reuters

BREAKING NEWS: Design

Modern-Day Autoprogettazione: The Delta Lamp

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